The method of study can significantly affect how quickly students acquire new language skills. An educational researcher wanted to investigate whether using an interactive mobile app or traditional physical flashcards leads to faster translation of foreign text.
To test this, the researcher set up an experiment with two separate groups of participants. One group of six participants studied Spanish vocabulary using an interactive mobile app. A second group of six different participants studied the same vocabulary using physical flashcards.
After one week, each participant was timed (in seconds) as they translated a standard 50-word Spanish passage. The results and their overall ranks are shown in the table below.
| Interactive App Group | Flashcard Group | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Participant | Score (seconds) | Rank | Participant | Score (seconds) | Rank |
| A | 145 | 3 | G | 120 | 1 |
| B | 162 | 6 | H | 130 | 2 |
| C | 188 | 9 | I | 150 | 4 |
| D | 210 | 11 | J | 155 | 5 |
| E | 195 | 10 | K | 175 | 7 |
| F | 235 | 12 | L | 180 | 8 |
| n1=6n_1 = 6n1=6 | n2=6n_2 = 6n2=6 |
Give one reason why the Mann-Whitney U test is the appropriate inferential test to use to analyse the data from 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.