A psychologist investigated the effect of background noise type on reading comprehension. Participants were asked to read a complex academic text. One group of six participants read the text while listening to instrumental lo-fi music (non-vocal background). A different group of six participants read the same text while listening to lyrical pop music (vocal background).
Afterwards, all participants completed a comprehension test, which was scored out of 25. The data collected, along with preliminary rankings, is presented in the table below.
| Reading comprehension score (max. 25) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Instrumental music group | Lyrical music group | ||||
| Participant | Score | Rank | Participant | Score | Rank |
| a | 22 | 11 | a | 12 | 2 |
| b | 24 | 12 | b | 14 | 3 |
| c | 19 | 8.5 | c | 11 | 1 |
| d | 17 | 6 | d | 20 | 10 |
| e | 18 | 7 | e | 15 | 4 |
| f | 19 | 8.5 | f | 16 | 5 |
| n1=6n_1 = 6n1=6 | n2=6n_2 = 6n2=6 |
Outline two ways that using an independent measures design could affect the validity of this study.
644 exam-style questions on OCR A Level Psychology Research methods and techniques. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.