Experimental Design

Question 1

How many experimental designs are there?

Answer 1

Three.

Question 2

What are the three experimental designs?

Answer 2

• Repeated Measures
• Independent Groups
• Matched Pairs

Question 3

What is a repeated measures design?

Answer 3

This is where all of the participants take part in all of the conditions.

Question 4

What are two advantages of repeated measures designs?

Answer 4

• No participant variables

- Requires half the number of participants as other designs.

Question 5

What are two disadvantages of repeated measures designs?

Answer 5

• Suffers from order effects

- High chance of demand characteristics

Question 6

What do order effects consist of?

Answer 6

• Practice effect

- Boredom effect

Question 7

What are order effects?

Answer 7

When participants do better or worse in a study because they either already completed the study and have practiced it, or they are bored of completing the same study again.

Question 8

What is an independent groups design?

Answer 8

This is where the participants are placed into separate groups and each group completes one condition of the study only.

Question 9

What are two advantages of independent groups designs?

Answer 9

• Does not suffer from order effects

- Low chance of demand characteristics

Question 10

What are two disadvantages of independent groups designs?

Answer 10

• Low degree of control over participant variables

- Requires twice as many participants as a repeated measures design

Question 11

What is a matched pairs design?

Answer 11

This is where the participants are split into separate groups, however the participants have been matched in pairs based off of important characteristics.

Question 12

What are two advantages of matched pairs designs?

Answer 12

• Does not suffer from order effects

- Low chance of demand characteristics

Question 13

What are two disadvantages of matched pairs designs?

Answer 13

• Less control over participant variables than repeated measures
• Requires twice as many participants as a repeated measures design.

Question 14

Which design does random allocation control researcher bias of?

Answer 14

Independent groups design.

Question 15

What is random allocation?

Answer 15

This is where participants are randomly selected to be put into the conditions; they have equal chance of being selected.
This could be done by putting the names of all the participants into a hat and picking randomly the names.

Question 16

Which design does counterbalancing control the order effects of?

Answer 16

Repeated measures design.

Question 17

What is counterbalancing?

Answer 17

This is referred to as ‘ABBA’.
This involves half of the participants in condition A, followed by half of the participants in condition B, and then the other half of condition B starting and being followed by the rest of condition A.