Question

A study is conducted to determine whether people learn better with spaced or massed practice. Subjects volunteer from an introductory psychology class. At the beginning of the semester 12 subjects volunteer and are assigned to the massed-practice group. At the end of the semester 12 subjects volunteer and are assigned to the spaced-practice condition. (a) Is this a sampling or a census?

(b) Is this an observational study or an experiment?

(c) This study involves two kinds of non-random sampling: (1) Subjects are not randomly sampled from some specied population and (2) Subjects are not randomly assigned to groups. Which problem is more serious? What aect on the results does each have?

Answer 1