For the following research design, identify the following: (a) the independent a

Question

For the following research design, identify the following: (a) the independent and dependent variables, (b) the appropriate scale of measurement for each variable, and (c) the appropriate statistical test. Justify your answers.

A statistics professor is looking for the best way to encourage her students to improve their test performance. She believes that requiring students to work in collaborative groups will result in students making fewer errors on their final test. To test this hypothesis, the instructor’s two introduction to statistics classes were randomly assigned to one of two instructional conditions: a traditional lecture condition, where the instructor spends 50 minutes of each class period presenting the day’s material to the class from the blackboard; and a collaborative instruction condition, where students spend at least 20 minutes per class period working together to learn the day’s material. Every other aspect of the professor’s course design and teaching were the same for each condition. At the end of the course students in both conditions were given a 50-question, multiple-choice final test. How would the statistics professor determine if working in a collaborative group results in fewer errors on the final test?

Explanation / Answer

a) The independent variable is two instructional conditions and the dependent variable is the score on 50-question multiple-choice final test.

b) The appropriate scale of measurement for independent and dependent variables are nominal and continous scales respectively.

c) Here, there is only two level in the independent variable. So, the appropriate test for compare the means of score in two different  instructional conditions is t-test statistic. (We can use Z-test also because sample size large enough for the test).

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