Your Research Advisor Is Interested in Conducting a Field Experiment

Essay

Your research advisor is interested in conducting a field experiment at local parks investigating the bystander effect and the distance between recyclable materials on the ground and the nearest recycling receptacle, on people's likelihood of recycling. However, she does not have any time to design the study. Instead, you are tasked with designing the study. Specifically, how would you operationalize the IVs and DV? How would you achieve random assignment in the context of this study? In your response, be sure to (a) identify and describe the operations for two IVs and one DV; (b) explain how participants would be randomly assigned to experimental conditions; and (c) explain how your design would be able to demonstrate the causal effects of the IVs on recycling, rather than have people's recycling behavior (i.e., the DV) vary based on their preexisting commitment to recycling.