Posted: January 12th, 2015

Hypothetical studies analyses Study 1 – Gambling Intervention

Hypothetical studies analyses

Study 1 – Gambling Intervention
A researcher is testing a new intervention intended to help self-confessed on-line gambling
addicts overcome their addiction. Eighty gambling addicts volunteer to participate.
Every day for the first seven days of the study, baseline gambling data were gathered. The
participants allowed researchers access to their on-line transactions and a system was set up to record
the time spent at gambling sites. Data were also collected for the amount of money spent and
number of bets. These data presented a similar picture to the time data and are not reported here.
Each participant’s daily data were averaged over the 7 days to yield a more reliable baseline measure
of daily gambling at pre-test. The monitoring of on-line gambling continued for both groups
throughout the intervention period (data not included).
Prior to the intervention, the 88 participants were randomly divided into two groups of 44
each, with each group having 22 males and 22 females. One group was placed on a waiting list and
served as the control group for the current study. The second group received the intervention, which
consisted of a 4-week period of daily sessions with a therapist. The sessions involved cognitive
behavior therapy, behaviour contracts, and some disagreeable punishments for gambling. For
example, participants’ spouses were informed about gambling incidents, and participants were
“named and shamed” in front of other group members.

At the end of the intervention, the participants who had not left the study had their gambling
monitored for a further 7 days for the post-test. The researcher analysed the pre- and post-test data
for these remaining participants to test the hypothesis that there would be a greater reduction in
gambling in the treatment group. The data analysis for time (minutes) spent at gambling sites per
day is presented below:
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Questions

1a)   1 mark       Draw a plot of the data showing the gambling score at each time point, with separate
lines for each group. Label the axes clearly.
1b)   1 mark       Briefly report the results in APA format, describing each significant main effect and
interaction, and commenting on the results in relation to the predictions. Include MSEs
(see study 3 results).
1c)   1 mark       Is gender a PAV variable in this study? Explain your answer. [50 – 75 words]
1d)   3 marks      Interpretation Question:
Would it be correct to conclude that the intervention was responsible for the reduced
gambling in the treatment group than in the control group at post-test? Explain your
answer. [100 – 150 words]

Study 2 – Clear Thinking Instruction Program

A lecturer devised a series of 6 classes to assist university students to argue positions soundly
and clearly, and to think critically in analysing evidence and arguments. This “clear-thinking”
course examined arguments about important issues for contemporary society. The lecturer required
the entire first-year cohort of 40 students in his department’s prestigious and difficult astronomy
program to take the course in their first semester at university. In order to get an assessment of the
course’s effectiveness, he recruited a comparison sample of 40 first-year Bachelor of Arts students,
also in their first semester at university. The comparison (control) group did their normal courses and
did not receive any specific training in argumentation or critical thinking. Prior to the pre-test, both
groups were given an overview of the issues used as examples in the test, such as global warming
and surrogate motherhood. None of the issues in the test was discussed in the clear-thinking course,
and different issues were presented in the pre- and post-tests.
Because existing cognitive ability is a possible confounding variable, the students in the
control group were matched to the astronomy group on a cognitive test. This matching was
accomplished in two steps. First, all 40 students in the astronomy cohort and the 250 students in the
BA pool completed a test of reasoning and general cognitive ability in class. Second, for each of the
40 astronomy students, a BA student with a similar score on the ability test was invited to participate,
until there were 40 students in the control group who were statistically similar to the astronomy
group on cognitive test scores.
At the beginning of semester and 6 weeks later, all participants were tested on critical
thinking and argumentation about the issues presented at the outset of the study. Scores
(percentages) on these tests were the pre-test and post-test data for the study. The lecturer analysed
the scores to test his prediction that the clear-thinking course group would improve compared to the
control group from pre-test to post-test. Presented below is the data analysis for the experiment:
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Questions

2a)    1 mark    Draw a plot of the data showing thinking scores at each time point, with separate lines
for each group. Label the axes clearly.
2b)    1 mark    Briefly report the results in APA format, describing each significant main effect and
interaction, commenting on the results in relation to the predictions. Include MSEs
(see study 3 results).
2c)    3 marks   Interpretation Question:
Would it be correct to conclude that the Clear Thinking program was responsible for
better achievement in the astronomy students than in the comparison group at post-test?
Give one reason why or why not. [150 words]
2d)    2 marks   Suggest two improvements to the DESIGN of this study. Explain each suggestion
briefly. [50 – 75 words]
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Study 3 – Identity theft on-line

A psychologist is interested in individual and situational factors affecting people’s attitudes to
giving personal information on-line, for example in on-line shopping or on social network sites. She
asks people to give ratings on a 7-point scale indicating how willing they would be to give their
name, address and date of birth on-line. She expects that information technology (IT) expertise will
impact on peoples’ attitudes and behaviour, so she compares 56 people working in IT with 56 people
of a similar age and education working in other areas. The participants come to the lab for the study,
and each occupational group is randomly divided into 2 subgroups of 28. All subgroups participate
in an online game under one of two conditions. One subgroup from each employment group
performs the game with a concurrent working memory task, requiring them to hold material for
frequent memory tests administered during short breaks in the game (high cognitive load). The
second subgroup in each occupation category answer general knowledge questions during the time
that the memory groups are being tested, and are not required to memorise anything (low cognitive
load). Thus the psychologist has a 2-way between-participants design with IVs occupation (IT vs.
other) and cognitive load (high vs. low). Each participant is asked twice during the on-line game to
type in some personal information in accordance with a cover story (e.g., to compare attributes of
other game players who were born in the same year and in the same or a different month).
Participants get scores of 0 to 6 on a DV tapping willingness to give personal information, based on
whether they hesitated (queried the request) and what information they gave. High scores indicate
more information given and less hesitation. She predicts that willingness will be higher for the non-
IT than the IT group and higher for high than low cognitive load. The mean scores are shown below.

In line with predictions, there were significant main effects of occupation, with higher scores
for the non-IT than the IT group, F(1,108) = 78.91, MSE = .946, p < .001, and cognitive load, with
higher scores under high than low cognitive load, F(1,108) = 90.55, p < .001. Unexpectedly, the
main effects were qualified by a significant two-way interaction of occupation and load, F(1,108) =
7.00, p < .01, reflecting the fact that the load effect was most evident for the IT group. The
researcher concluded that IT experts are more likely to conduct a rigorous and cognitive evaluation
of the security threat posed by on-line requests for information, and thus they are substantially
affected by concurrent cognitive load.
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Questions

3a)   1 mark    Plot the results in a line-graph with occupation on the x-axis. Label the axes clearly.
3b)   3 marks   Interpretation Question:
Briefly comment on the strengths and weaknesses of the DESIGN of this study. In
your answer consider how the IVs were varied (in terms of within vs. between and
manipulated vs. PAV). [150 words]
3c)   3 marks   Interpretation Question:
Comment on the unexpected two-way interaction. Was the researcher correct in
concluding that people working in IT are more affected by ongoing cognitive demands
when evaluating requests for personal information? Why or why not?

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