A researcher placed an advert on a university campus asking undergraduate students to participate in a 10-day study tracking digital wellness and daily concentration.
Each student downloaded a custom-designed productivity app that logged their daily smartphone usage. Every evening, students were instructed to open the app to view their daily screen-time summary. Unbeknownst to the participants, the screen-time data shown was manipulated by the researcher. Over the 10 days, the app randomly showed 'high screen usage' (flagged as unhealthy) on five of the evenings, and 'optimal screen usage' (flagged as healthy) on the other five evenings, regardless of actual use.
After viewing their daily summary each evening, students completed a short questionnaire. The main question asked them to rate their overall concentration during the day on a scale of 1–10. In addition to this main question, the researcher included several other questions about their daily meals, physical activity levels, and local weather conditions.
Explain one reason why the researcher chose to include these additional questions on the questionnaire.
689 exam-style questions on AQA A Level Psychology Scientific processes. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.