A sports scientist wanted to investigate whether reaction time to a visual stimulus is affected by the type of warm-up routine performed.
The scientist obtained a stratified sample of 50 athletes from a local sports club consisting of 150 sprinters and 100 long-distance runners.
Each participant was tested individually in a temperature-controlled sports laboratory. They were instructed to press a response key as soon as a high-contrast visual cue appeared on a monitor.
There were two conditions in the study:
The scientist recorded the exact reaction time (in milliseconds) for each participant.
Identify one extraneous variable that the scientist should have controlled in this study and explain why it should have been controlled.
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.