Research Project 2: Designing Experiments
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Your job is
to design 2 experiments based on the research scenarios below
·
The description
of each experiment can be relatively brief; just be sure to answer each part
of the assignment.
·
Assume that
you have virtually unlimited time and money to conduct this study and simple
designs are preferred
·
Click
here for a brief tutorial on designing experiments (related to the in-class
ITEs on Designing Experiments).
·
Use the terminology
of FBK or Finn to demonstrate you have mastered experimental methodology
·
You may request
teammates review your answers, but students must create their own unique experiments
·
APA style in
RP2: cover page, running header, headers, double space everything; use references
to indicate the sources of the basic
principles you apply
·
Center the primary
headers (E.g., Experiment 1); left-justify & italicize the secondary
headers (E.g., Question 1)
An executive in a large corporation is concerned about the way meetings are conducted in his company. He knows that the company is spending quite a bit of money for business meetings, whether face to face meetings (about $300 per hour, counting travel costs), video conferencing meetings ($30 per hour) and audio (telephone) conferencing meetings (about $10 per hour). In addition, a great deal of money is spent in employees’ time to attend these meetings.
He has also noticed a couple other things. First, he is concerned about the length of meetings. He suspects that video conferencing (VC), and audio conferencing using speakerphones (AC-S), may actually take longer than face to face (FtF) or audio conferencing using regular telephone handsets (AC-T) to accomplish the same task – primarily because (half-duplex) speaker phones only allow one person to speak at a time. In addition, he has a concern that audio conference groups may not reach agreement (group consensus) on a solution or course of action in a single meeting as often as the groups that have a visual channel. Second, he believes that there may be a difference related to the type of meeting being held. Specifically, that staff meetings run by group supervisors (GS) will be shorter and reach consensus more quickly than project meetings run by project coordinators (PC), regardless of the type of conferencing (primarily because the "boss" of the group has more power than the coordinator of a project).
He hires you as a researcher to study the problem. He tells you to ignore the monetary cost of the three types of conferencing, and simply tell him which type of conferencing is best for keeping meetings short and which is best for reaching group consensus. Design an experiment to examine these issues.
Address/list/describe
the following issues:
1. (A
formal statement of) the basic research question(s) or hypotheses. (Turn the manager's concerns/beliefs
above into formal hypotheses.)
2.
Draw the experimental
design, listing the independent variable(s) for the study, and the specific
levels for each variable (I strongly recommend you use
the "table" feature in MS Word - ask a teammate if you do not know
how and have trouble figuring it out.)
3.
List the dependent
variable(s) for the study and provide specific operationalization(s)
4.
List two (potential)
extraneous variables. Give these a formal/specific name and explain why you
think they might impact the IV-DV relationship. How could/would you control
for these variables?
5.
Would you use a lab or a field experiment in this situation? Why?
6.
Briefly describe
the largest concerns one would face if this is conducted in the field. Do the
same for a lab experiment.
(You could list issues you haven’t solved or addressed, or describe one or more qualifications of this research.
A professor is interested in knowing whether the type of instruction makes a difference in student learning (produces higher levels of learning, or results in longer retention of learning). Specifically, she decides to compare the team learning approach with the traditional lecture approach. Design an experiment to test whether or not students learn more and whether they retain more after one year.
Address/list/describe
the following issues:
1. Formally
state two specific hypotheses you would propose for this study (only one IV
and one DV per hypothesis).
2. Name/describe
the experimental design, and the
IV(s) and the IV levels.
3.
Describe the
DVs and the specific operationalization(s)
you would use.
4.
List two other
variables that might influence the realtionship between the IV(s) and the DV(s),
and explain why/how they might have an effect.