Question

A professor is interested in whether taking online quizzes over a chapter before discussing the chapter in class will improve students’ test performance. The professor is interested in examining the testing effect, the finding that taking a memory test not only assesses what one knows, but also enhances later retention. The professor hypothesizes that students who take chapter quizzes will score higher on the midterm test than students who do not take chapter quizzes.

1. Design and describe an experiment that could test this hypothesis. Describe how this design could test the hypothesis.

2. Identify the IV and DV.

3. Provide an operational definition of each variable.

Answer 1

1. For this experiment, the professor can use a between-subjects design and randomly assign the participants into two groups. One group would be required to take 3 online quizzes on a weekly basis before their mid-term test, while the other group would be required to read the chapter material thrice. The amount of time spent on both these tasks will be kept constant for both groups and will be conducted in a controlled, laboratory setting.

This design would help test the hypothesis by allowing the professor to compare the average scores of both the participants in their midterm examinations and check if there are any significant differences between the groups. If the quiz-taking group performs significantly better than the reading group, then the professor can conclude that his hypothesis is correct.

2. The independent variable is practice quiz.

The dependent variable is recall.

3. A practice quiz can be defined as an informal test taken as online as a preparation for an actual examination.

Recall is the process of retrieving information that is learned from the past.