A sports psychologist investigated whether the scent diffused in a preparation room influences an athlete's perceived mental focus before a high-intensity workout.
They conducted a repeated measures design experiment using two different essential oil diffusers: one dispersing peppermint aroma and another dispersing lavender aroma. First, participants warmed up in a room diffused with peppermint aroma and immediately rated their perceived mental focus on a scale of 1 ('completely unfocused') to 50 ('extremely sharp and focused'). Two weeks later, the same participants returned to warm up in a room diffused with lavender aroma and rated their mental focus using the same scale.
The data collected is shown in the table below:
| Participant | Condition A (Peppermint aroma) | Condition B (Lavender aroma) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 45 | 22 |
| 2 | 38 | 15 |
| 3 | 29 | 31 |
| 4 | 48 | 42 |
| 5 | 50 | 18 |
| 6 | 33 | 25 |
Outline one reason why the reliability of the data collected in this study could be low.
201 exam-style questions on OCR A Level Psychology Planning and conducting research. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.