A researcher wanted to investigate the relationship between reading medium and reading comprehension.
She conducted a pilot study using a short novella divided into 10 chapters. Eleven participants, matched for their baseline reading comprehension scores, took part in the study.
All 11 participants read all 10 chapters. They read either entirely on an e-reader, entirely from a physical paper book, or a combination of both.
Each participant was randomly allocated a letter from A to K. This letter determined how many chapters they read on an e-reader and how many they read from a physical paper book, as shown in Table 1.
Table 1: The number of chapters each participant (labelled A – K) read on an e-reader and as a physical paper book
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chapters read on e-reader | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| Chapters read on physical book | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
Outline one benefit of randomly allocating the participants to these different conditions as seen in Table 1.
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.
