A educational psychologist wanted to investigate how background sound affects reading comprehension. To do this, she conducted an independent measures experiment where she presented one group of participants with a short academic article to read with 'classical instrumental music' playing softly in the background. A different group of participants read the same article with 'pop music containing lyrics' playing at the same volume. After reading, participants completed a reading comprehension quiz scored from 0 (lowest) to 20 (highest).
| Reading Comprehension Scores (0–20) | |
|---|---|
| Classical Instrumental Music | Pop Music with Lyrics |
| 16 | 10 |
| 19 | 8 |
| 18 | 12 |
| 11 | 9 |
| 15 | 14 |
| 14 | 10 |
| 17 | 11 |
| 18 | 7 |
| 13 | 11 |
| 16 | 9 |
| 20 | 12 |
| 12 | 5 |
Outline one conclusion that could be made about this study if p < 0.05 appeared in the significance statement after conducting an appropriate statistical test.
513 exam-style questions on OCR A Level Psychology Data recording, analysis and presentation. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.