Unit 1 FRQ
B. Design an experiment Professor Hahn could use to investigate this topic, including the following terms in the context of your design. • Operational definition • Independent and dependent variable • Random assignment
Professor Hahn could design in experiment in which she determines whether or not there is a correlation between time spent video gaming and childhood obesity. To obtain an operational definition so the experiment can be replicated, Professor Hahn would have to measure things such as weights of the children and the time the children play the video games. The independent variable in the experiment would be the actual playing of the video games while the dependent variable would be the weight gain in the children. The children would be randomly assigned into either a the control or experimental group through something like flipping a coin or picking names out of a hat.
D. Explain how Professor Hahn would use statistics (including at least one measure of central tendency and inferential statistics) to examine the data from the study to reach a conclusion.
Professor Hahn could find the mean of her data by finding the average weight and average time spent video gaming of the experimental and control group. From this measure of central tendency she could use inferential statistics to determine whether or not the difference between the experimental and control group is statistically significant.
C. Explain how Professor Hahn's experimental design would conform to ethical guidelines.
The experiment would conform to ethical guidelines because there would be informed consent of the participants, with parental consent as well since those involved are minors. There would be confidentiality because because the names and personal information of the participants would not be revealed. Finally, the experiment would cause no physical or mental harm and there would be debriefings afterward to ensure this.
A. Explain how Professor Hahn could use each of the following research methods to study this topic: • Case study • Survey • Naturalistic observation
A case study is a descriptive research technique in which information is gathered about a certain person or group of people, in this case children. For this particular situation, Professor Hahn could gather information about one child such as their weight, eating habits, and amount of time spend playing video games. A survey can reach a large group of people which would be important in this case and can be used to gather self-reported information. Professor Hahn could use a survey to gather data on weight/obesity and video game playing from a large sample of children. A Naturalistic Observation involves observing certain subjects in a natural environment, so Professor Hahn could use naturalistic observation by observing behaviors of children such as eating habits and video game playing without the children being aware of this.