Fix It Dr. Noble Is a College Professor Who Wants to Know

Essay

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Dr. Noble is a college professor who wants to know whether text anxiety is related to test performance. At the beginning of the semester she administers the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) to all of the students in each of her three classes: Psychological Statistics, Experimental Psychology, and Brain and Behavior. At the end of the semester she calculates each student's mean exam score. She analyzes the data using Pearson's r and finds a statistically significant positive relationship. As students' anxiety increases, their test performance decreases (r(88) = -.68, p < .05). Dr. Noble conducts another study the following semester. Like the previous semester, she administers the BAI to each of the students in her three classes: History of Psychology, Learning and Behavior, and Personality Theories. She also calculates the students' mean exam scores at the end of the semester. However, this semester she attempts to reduce test anxiety in her students by diffusing sweet orange essential oil throughout the classroom on the exam days. Dr. Noble examines the relationship between BAI scores and test performance and finds the two are not significantly related (r(103) = .18, p > .05). She then performs a paired t-test to determine whether test scores obtained in the first semester (no essential oil) differ from test scores obtained in the second semester (sweet orange oil) and finds a statistically significant difference (t(194) = 5.32, p < .05) with student exam scores being greater in the essential oil condition. Dr. Noble presents the data at a regional psychology conference where she reports that anxiety causes students to perform poorly on exams and advocates for the use of essential oils in the classroom.
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