Question

In a study examining psychological and organization efforts of pets in the workplace, Wells and Perrine (2001) found that employees believed pets reduced stress and brought positive benefits to the environment. Suppose another researcher, Dr. D, believes that the presence of pets will reduce speech anxiety in oral communication classes. To test this theory, participants were recruited from oral communication classes and randomly assigned to deliver a 10- minute persuasive speech either with or without a small older yet quiet dog resting near the podium. All speeches were videotaped, and trained observers scored the number of anxiety behaviors, such as shaking hands, wobbly legs, and cracking voice. Participants also completed a speech anxiety questionnaire when they finished their speech. As Dr. D expected, participants reported less anxiety when the dog was present than participants in the control condition.

1.Identify the null and research hypotheses for this experiment?

2.Identify the independent variable and state the different levels?

3.Identify the dependent variable?

4.What is the experimental designs?

5.Name several extraneous variables that should be controlled?

6.Evaluate this study for experimenter bias and demand characteristics?

7.If the researcher examined differences in anxiety reduction between female and male participants, what kind of research design would this be?

8.If the difference in anxiety level between the experimental and control groups are due to chance, explain to the researcher why the results would change?

9.If true anxiety differences existed between the two experimental conditions, but they were not detected, what kind of error occurred?

Answer 1

1)

Null hypothesis: Presence of pet doesnot affect the speech anxiety

Alternate hypothesis: Presence of pets reduces speech anxiety in people

2)

The independent variable is presence of pet: it has only two levels presence or absence

3)

Dependent variable is the “speech anxiety score”

4)

It was a two sample control-experimental groups design, one is control group where no dog is present next to the podium and another group is where a dog is present near the podium

5)

The participants may be influenced by the fact the speech is being recorded, or they are being rated, if they know they are being observed there is bound to be a biased behavior

Presence of friends may make the participants comfortable

Familiarity with the room or place also affects confidence level

Personal confidence level affect the entire observation

6)

Yes the study is not blinded hence there is bound to be an experimenter bias, since the entire study is based on subjective parameters it is assumed that the scorers may be baised towards the group with dog beside the podium

7)

Since we have one factor presence of pet, and the second factor would be gender, this would result isa two factorial design, where is each factor would have two levels pets(presence / absence) and gender(male / female) Hence it results in a 2x2 matrix of data and a chi square test can be helpful here

8)

If the difference observed is just by chance this implies that the claim made by the researcher would not be true and this would imply that the presence of a pet does not affect the speech anxiety of people and hence we would conclude to disagree the claim made by the researcher

9)

This results in type II error, when the claim is correct but the sample and its data fals to prove it and we end up deciding that the claim is incorrect this is called type II error