Question

A professor believes that students who have the opportunity to write their essays on word processors will produce better essays than those who write them by hand. Design an experiment that tests this idea.

1. Do you need to define any terms for your experiment (operationally define)? If so, define them here.

6. What treatment will the experimental group be given?

7. What treatment will the control group be given?

8. What controls will you use in your experiment? Be sure to avoid experimenter bias!

9. Is there anything you think you should control for, but aren’t sure how?

10. What purpose would this line of research serve (and which subgroup do you think this experiment would most closely relate with)?

Answer 1

1. We need to operationally define the following terms:

• Essay: A short piece of writing on a particular subject.
• Word processor: A program for storing, manipulating, and formatting text entered from a keyboard.

6. The experimental group will be asked to write the essay using a word processor.

7. The control group will be asked to write the essay using their hands.

8. The controls used in the experiment would be to give the same topic to both the groups, along with the same word limit.

Please post the other questions separately as we are supposed to answer just one question or four sub parts of a question.