A high school teacher wanted to discover whether there is a relationship between muscular tension and success in learning. He as
ked 60 English speaking students to memorize a list of Russian words while sitting still at a desk. This was the control condition. After a rest period, he provided an experimental situation by asking the same students to memorize a similar list of Russian words while lifting weights of several pounds. Thus, the experimental subjects acted as their own controls. Then the performance of each subject under experimental (lifting weights) conditions was compared with his performance under the control procedure. In almost all cases, the number of Russian words correctly recalled was better under the experimental condition. The experimenter concluded that learning improved under conditions of moderate muscular tension. a) Identify the independent variable.
b) Identify the dependent variable.
c) Cite an important defect or problem in the method of this experiment.
d) Suggest an improved experimental design to the above experiment.
