Research suggests that background audio can influence cognitive performance. A psychologist investigated whether listening to binaural beats affects rated concentration levels of software developers. They used an independent measures design to compare self-reported focus ratings of participants working with binaural beats against those working in silence. Some of the data collected is presented in the table below.
| Binaural beats | Silence | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Focus Rating (1–100) | Rank | Focus Rating (1–100) | Rank |
| 82 | 15 | 54 | 6 |
| 85 | 18 | 58 | 10 |
| 79 | 12 | 51 | 3 |
| 81 | 14 | 55 | 7 |
| 83 | 16 | 53 | 5 |
| 12 | 1 | 98 | 20 |
| 80 | 13 | 52 | 4 |
| 84 | 17 | 56 | 8 |
| 86 | 19 | 50 | 2 |
| 78 | 11 | 57 | 9 |
Note: A focus rating of 1 indicates 'highly distracted' and 100 indicates 'deeply focused'.
Explain why it may have been better to use the median to calculate the measure of central tendency in this study rather than the mean.
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.