A sports scientist recruited amateur runners from a local athletics club to investigate the psychological factors affecting physical endurance during a treadmill test.
Participants were instructed to run on a treadmill at a constant speed of 12 km/h for as long as they could sustain the effort. While running, a digital monitor in front of them displayed the "average duration achieved by other runners in your age category." However, participants were unaware that this "average duration" was completely fabricated and manipulated in real time by the researcher. Half of the participants were shown a target duration that was continuously kept 25% higher than their actual current running time (to induce pressure), while the other half were shown a target duration 25% lower than their actual time.
Immediately after stepping off the treadmill, participants completed a brief questionnaire rating their physical exhaustion and perceived level of athletic self-efficacy on a scale of 1–10.
Explain one way in which the researcher might deal with the deception in this study.
Practise AQA A Level Psychology Scientific processes with exam-style questions for A Level Psychology. 689 questions, matched to the AQA A Level Psychology (7182) specification and written in Paper 1, Paper 2 and Paper 3 style. Every question includes a full worked solution and mark scheme, so you can see where marks are awarded rather than just whether you got the answer right.
