Jason Moon

Ms. Herzig
September 17, 2016
Period 7

A. Professor Jacksons sample is only 100 of her psychology students. A data

of just 100 of her psychology students is too insufficient and unreliable. In
order to get a better data, she should have experimented with more
students, not just from her class but from variety of other classes in the
campus, or maybe even faculty members. By doing this, she can get a
more accurate and reliable data because it contains a wide variety of
majors and age groups.
B. She assigned the first 50 students that arrived to class as one group and
the next 50 as another group. It is possible that the first 50 students that
arrived can be organized students that get to class in time and the last 50
can be unorganized students. To prevent this kind of experimental flaw,
she should first wait till all 100 of her students arrive to class. Then, she
can use the simple random sample (SRS) method to randomly select 50
from her 100 students and group them as the first group then the next
one as the second group. This will randomize the grouping.
C. Professor Jackson is only dealing with half the sample and the assistant is
dealing with the other half. This can result in an experimental bias
because Jackson and the assistant might have a different level of standard
for rating the statements. They can also have favorites in their group
which can result in a high rating. In order to prevent this, they should both
be evaluating the same person at the same time and average out their
rating.
D. To prevent any experimenter bias, Jackson and her assistant should do the
rating together after they have scored each of the 50 students. At first,
they should not know which students are from which group because that
can result in a bias call. If one knows that a student was in group one, it is
likely to think that the students rating was high due to the challenging
puzzle.
E. All the students should be taking the exam in the same room because
different rooms can have different temperatures which can result in
different level of stress. Lets say if one room is too hot or too cold, the
students can feel stressed out. Another confounding variable is all the
students should be healthy and not sick. If a student has a really bad cold
or fever she might not be able to speak properly or not think properly
because his or her head hurts.