Question

Agave is a plant that grows in Mexico and the southwestern U.S. Researchers at Penn State University conducted a study to see if a syrup made from the Agave nectar was effective at relieving cough in children. In this study the researchers recruited 80 children who went to an outpatient pediatric practice with a cough. The researchers randomly assigned the children to one of two groups (40 to each). One group received a grape flavored agave nectar and the other group received a placebo in the form of grape flavored water, which tasted identical. The parents of the children were then asked to complete a survey on how frequently the child coughed that night. The parents were aware of whether the child received the agave or the placebo, but were instructed not to provide any information about this to their children. The researchers found that there was no statistically significant difference between the agave and placebo groups.Identify the: (1) experimental design, (2) subjects, (3) explanatory variable, and (4) response variable.

One of the researchers was concerned that younger children might respond differently to the cough syrup, so they propose an alternative design, wherein the children are split according to age. Since the 80 children in the study were from ages 4 to 12, they decided to make 2 groups, ages 4-8 and 8-12.It was found that 36 children were in the 4-8 age group, and the rest (44 children) were in the 8-12 age group. For age group 4-8,18 children were randomly assigned to agave nectar and 18 to the grape flavored water. Similar random assignment was made for age group 8-12. Which of the following describes the design of this experiment?

Select one:

a. Stratified random design.

b. Randomized block design.

c. Simple random design.

d. Cluster design.

Thank You and God Bless You

Answer 1