1.5: Obedience

Question 1

Below is a table of data relating to the number of people who gave up a train seat when ordered to by a person dressing in different clothes:

The number of people (out of 20) who obeyed an order to give up a train seat was 3 for the order issued by a person in a track-suit, 5 for the order issued by a person in casual clothes and 16 for the order issued by a person in the train company uniform.

The study used an independent groups design.
Give one advantage and one disadvantage of this design (4 marks)

Answer 1

One advantage of an independent groups design is that each participant performs only one condition of a study, so there is less chance of demand characteristics, where participants form an opinion of the hypothesis and act as they believe the researcher wants them to

Question 2

Below is a table of data relating to the number of people who gave up a train seat when ordered to by a person dressing in different clothes:

The number of people (out of 20) who obeyed an order to give up a train seat was 3 for the order issued by a person in a track-suit, 5 for the order issued by a person in casual clothes and 16 for the order issued by a person in the train company uniform.

The study used an independent groups design.
Give one advantage and one disadvantage of this design (4 marks).
One advantage of an independent groups design is that each participant performs only one condition of a study, so there is less chance of demand characteristics, where participants form an opinion of the hypothesis and act as they believe the researcher wants them to.

One disadvantage of an independent groups design

Answer 2

One disadvantage of an independent groups design is that each participant produces only one piece of data, so twice as many participants are required than in a repeated measures design where each participant produces two or more pieces of data