Many students listen to music or study in public spaces like cafes where there is background speech. Researchers wanted to investigate whether background speech affects reading comprehension.
An opportunity sample of 24 university undergraduates took part in the experiment. There were 14 females and 10 males, aged 18–22 years. The students were randomly assigned to either the 'cafe chatter' condition or the 'silent' condition, with 12 students in each condition.
In the 'cafe chatter' condition, students were placed in a cubicle and asked to read a short academic article for 10 minutes. Background audio of typical cafe chatter was played through headphones. Afterwards, they completed a 15-item multiple-choice comprehension test based on the text.
In the 'silent' condition, students were placed in an identical cubicle with the same headphones but experienced complete silence. They read the same academic article for 10 minutes and completed the same comprehension test.
Before the experiment, the researchers told the students that they were testing the readability of a new digital interface layout. They did not mention the background audio or the true focus of the study. All students were fully debriefed at the end of the session.
The test scores (out of 15) yielded the following results:
Explain one reason why the participants in this investigation were not informed of the full details of the study beforehand.
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