A developmental psychologist wants to investigate whether playing an interactive educational app on a tablet leads to better vocabulary acquisition in 3-year-old children compared to reading an illustrated picture book. The researcher designs an experiment where children are randomly allocated to either the tablet app group or the book group for a 20-minute session. Afterwards, their retention of 10 target words is tested using a picture-matching task.
Explain why it would be appropriate for the researcher to conduct a pilot study before carrying out this experiment.
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.
