Question

Dr. segal is studying the effects of television watching on the language development of children under the age of 2 years. because of room scheduling issues, the children in the experimental group underwent testing in the morning and the children in the control group underwent testing in the afternoon. this is an example of ____.

Answer 1

I believe the answer is: situational confounding factor

situational confounding factor refers to a variable that influence both dependent and independent variable, which might create a confusion within the research. From the example above, due to the difference in time, the 'effect' among children could be influenced by the time when they are made to watch the tv rather than the act of wathing itself.