An increasing number of students consume energy drinks to help them study. A group of researchers investigated whether consuming a caffeinated energy drink affects short-term memory recall.
An opportunity sample of thirty undergraduate students took part in the experiment. There were 18 females and 12 males aged 18–22 years. The students were randomly assigned to either the 'caffeine' condition or the 'water' condition, with 15 students in each condition.
In the 'caffeine' condition, students drank 250ml of a caffeinated energy drink. After waiting 20 minutes in a quiet waiting room, they were shown a list of 20 abstract nouns on a screen for 60 seconds. They were then given 2 minutes to write down as many words as they could recall.
In the 'water' condition, students followed the exact same procedure but drank 250ml of plain mineral water instead of the energy drink.
The recall tests were scored out of 20 (one mark for each correctly recalled word). The findings from the 'caffeine' condition were: mean recall score = 14.40, standard deviation = 2.10. The findings from the 'water' condition were: mean recall score = 11.20, standard deviation = 3.50.
Write a suitable hypothesis for this experiment.
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