Question

8.Study Type: For each of the following situations state whether the research is an observational study or a designed experiment. Explain your reasoning for your answer.

A) Recall Problem #3, in Grand Haven, Michigan, the speed limit on Mercury Drive is 45 mph. Residents with a driveway leading out to the road often complain that traffic tends to exceed 45 mph. A traffic engineer installs a device that records the speed of each car that passes a certain point on Mercury Drive during a two- week period.

B) The Stroop Effect states that the automatic processing of words interferes with the more mentally challenging task of simply naming colors. Data is collected on 100 Psych 101 students. Each student is shown 8 names of colors (such as blue, orange) written in different colors of ink. The time to correctly state the color of the ink is recorded. For half of the students the name of the color and the color of the ink are the same (such as the word blue written in blue ink). For the other half of the students the name of the color and the color of the ink are not the same (such as the word blue written in green ink).

C) In 2011 USA Today published salary information for all 121 NCAA Division I college football coaches. Some of the information was left blank because private schools do not have to make that information publicly available. Variables in the data set include coaches' name, school, conference affiliation, school pay, other pay, and maximum bonus possible.

D) A class of 100 undergraduate psychology students participates in a study to determine if memory is affected by background noise levels. Each student is given a list of 20 words to memorize. Each student is allowed one minute to look over the words in an isolated room with no noise. Fifty students are randomly assigned to study the words in a room that has ACDC’s “Highway To Hell” piped in at high volume. The other 50 students are assigned to study the words in a room that has Beethoven’s 9th symphony playing at a low volume. At the end of the one-minute study period, each student is asked to jot down as many of the 20 words as they remember.

Answer 1

A) This is a designed experiment because the engineer is installing a device to record the speed of each car which represents an experimental method.

B) This is also a designed experiment because of the assignment of the name of the color and the color of the ink is different for half of the students.

C) This is an observational study because the publication is based on what is seen and they do not use any randomization or experimental method for publication.

D) This is a designed experiment because students are randomly assigned to study the words with some specifications.

Good luck with your studies!!!