Question

A school psychologist wants to test the effectiveness of a new method of teaching music. She recruits 200 fifth​-grade students and randomly divides them into two groups. Group 1 is taught by means of the new​ method, while group 2 is taught by traditional methods. The same teacher is assigned to teach both groups. At the end of the​ year, an achievement test​ (graded on a scale from​ 1-10) is administered and the results of the two groups are compared.

How are the factors that are not controlled dealt​ with?

A. By assigning the first half of the fifth​-grade students to group 1 and the other half to group 2

B. Random assignment

C. By assigning the first half of the fifth​-grade students to group 2 and the other half to group 1

D. The groups are split based on their teacher.

Which group serves as the control group?

A. Group 1 serves as the control group because this group corresponds to the new teaching method that is being tested.

B. Group 1 serves as the control group because this group corresponds to the standard method that will be compared to the other method.

C. Group 2 serves as the control group because this group corresponds to the new teaching method that is being tested.

D. Group 2 serves as the control group because this group corresponds to the standard method that will be compared to the other method.

Answer 1

D. Group 2 serves as the control group because this group corresponds to the standard method that will be compared to the other method.

Control group is the group that doesn't receive any sort of treatment and experimental group is the one that get the treatment to be tested. Here, the treatment is the new teaching method. This treatment is received by the group 1, making it the experimental group. So, the control group is the one which does not get treatment (tradition method means not treatment is applied).