Midterm-FRQ Rewrite

The operational definition of the dependent variable would be the time in which the participants recalled the definitons of the words. The dependent variable would show us the significance of the distributed practice group and the massed practice group.

The ethical flaws in this study are that the researcher did not brief the participants after the study was completed. He also provided the names and scores of each individual to everyone in the study. To fix these ethical flaws, the researcher should first keep all the data and participation information private. If he was to release the data he found, he shoulkd keep the people who earned the scores anonymous. Also, to fix the other error, the researcher should brief the participants after the study is completed. He needed to sit all the participants down together and explain the purpose of the study, the methods used, and his findings.

The design flaw in the research would be the ages of the participants in each group. Age could be a confounding variable in word recollection, so the researcher should have randomly assigned people to the groups. This can be corrected by randomly selecting 60 volunteers at a local grocery store. After the random sample is collected, assign each person either a #1 or #2. All the ones would be in group A and the twos in group B. This will hopefulle ensure a mixture of ages in each group.

In a well-designed study, there is statistical significance if there is a 5% margain of error in the results. Also, if you recognize that there is a chance the findings could be wrong.

Fluid intelligence can affect the results of the study especially when dealing with different age groups in the study. Fluid intelligence peaks in yunger people, especially in their 20s, and it allows for faster problem solving and quicker thinking. As people get older, their fluid intelligence decreases and becomes crystalized and they lose the ability to think and put things together quickly. Because group A is in their 20s, their high fluid intelligence could have skewed the results, giving them quicker word recollection than group B participants in their 60s.

Semantic encoding deals with the encoding of words and relating meanings to personal experiences. Because of of this way of encoding, the results would be skewed because people who use this strategy of relation definitions to experiences would score higher.