Exam 5: Randomized Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs

A researcher is interested in the effects of ethics training on corporate executive decision-making. She contacts three similar companies. These three companies receive either an ethics training course, a traditional leadership course, or no course (control). Which training they receive is delivered randomly. The participating executives are assessed before and after training. This design is: Strong quasi-experimental design Explain your answer. There is random assignment of treatments to similar intact groups. Assume there are no significant pretest differences between the group

You have been contacted by a businesswoman who wants you to evaluate her company's leadership training program. She wants to know whether there are pretest influences on leadership assessment. She wants a strong design. What design will you suggest for her? Diagram your design

match the example with its specific design name. You may use the design name more than once. Also diagram the design. -A therapist is using a new type of hypnosis on clients who are afraid of heights. She measures clients' fear of heights at one week intervals for one month prior to treatment. The clients undergo hypnosis treatment. The therapist measures the clients' fear of heights at one week intervals for one month following the hypnosis therapy.

match the example with its specific design name. You may use the design name more than once. Also diagram the design. -Scooby-Doo wants to assess the relationship between the presence or absence of ghosts on fear. He randomly assigns a group of college students to either the ghost group or the no- ghost group. The ghost group will visit a spooky, haunted house, and the no-ghost group will visit a spooky house without ghosts. Both will be assessed on fear prior to and after the experiment.

The strength of a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design is influenced by:

Adding more DVs will increase the value of the one-group pretest-posttest design.

Mick Jagger wants to do a hearing study on aging rock stars. He has asked old rock stars to assign themselves to one of two groups: a group that rocks for 7 days straight and a group that doesn't rock at all for 7 days. He will do a pretest and posttest on their hearing. This study is: Explain your answer.

Time series designs:

match the example with its specific design name. You may use the design name more than once. Also diagram the design. -Dudley Dooright is doing a study on Canadian Mounties. Dudley will do an experimental Polly Purebread training with one group of Mounties followed by an assessment at the end.

Internal validity is threatened with the one-group pretest-posttest design.

match the example with its specific design name. You may use the design name more than once. Also diagram the design. -A university is instituting a new cultural diversity program. Annual admission rates of minority students are examined for the three years prior to the program's onset. Annual admission rates are tracked for the first three years of the program.

match the example with its specific design name. You may use the design name more than once. Also diagram the design. -There are two high schools in a community that is interested in a new anti-drug program. One high school receives the new anti-drug program, and the other high school decides to wait a year before beginning the new program. Both high schools collect information on students' drug use at the beginning and end of the school year.

match the example with its specific design name. You may use the design name more than once. Also diagram the design. -Wiley E. Coyote wants to assess a new Acne Product on roadrunners. He has two groups of roadrunners. One group receives the new Acne Product, and the other group gets the old Acne Product. Wiley measures Roadrunner escape speed before and after getting the Acne Products.

When conducting a pretest-posttest nonequivalent comparison group design is it possible to know that the groups are equivalent?

match the example with its specific design name. You may use the design name more than once. Also diagram the design. -Fred Flintstone wants to do a study on Bedrock vs. Stonetown with one evaluation at the end. Bedrock will get Rubble training and Stonetown will get no training.

The pretest-posttest control group design is always a quasi-experimental approach.

When matching is used, participants are matched in pairs on a characteristic that might influence the DV and then are randomly assigned to groups.

You have been contacted by a businesswoman who wants you to evaluate her company's leadership training program. She wants to know whether there are pretest influences on leadership assessment. She wants a strong design. What design will you suggest for her? Solomon four-group design Diagram your design

In a strong quasi-experimental design, the researcher has control over the IV.

Poor quasi-experimental designs have an attribute IV with only one level.