Experimental Designs

Question 1

What is an Independent Group Design?

Answer 1

Participants are allocated to different groups where each group represent different experimental conditions

Question 2

What is a Repeated Measures Design?

Answer 2

All participants take part all conditions if the experiment

Question 3

What is a Matched Pair Design?

Answer 3

Pairs of participants are first matched on variables that may impact the DV. Then one member does condition A and the other member does condition B

Question 4

What is Random Allocation?

Answer 4

An attempt to control for participant variables in an Independent Group Design. This ensures that each participant has the same chance of being in one condition as any other

Question 5

What are Order Effects?

Answer 5

A confounding variable that occurs in Repeated Measures Designs, arising from the order in which conditions are presented e.g. borden effect - if experiment is in a certain order, participants may get bored

Question 6

What is Counterbalancing?

Answer 6

An attempt to control for the effects if order effects in a Repeated Measures Design

Question 7

What is a pro and a con of IGD?

Answer 7

Pro: Reduces Demand Characteristics - participants are less likely to guess the aim
Con: Less economical - more participants required

Question 8

What is a pro and a con of RMD?

Answer 8

Pro: requires less people - less time consuming
Con: More likely that participants can work out the aim of the study - Demand Characteristics are more of a feature in this design

Question 9

What is a pro and a con of MPD?

Answer 9

Pro: Order effects are not a problem as they are not repeating two tasks and they are less likely to guess the aims - reduces chance of demand characteristics
Con: Matching participants can be time consuming and expensive