Question

Dr. Kang, a cognitive psychologist, conducts an experiment examining the effect of emotion on memory. He provides lists of 15 words to two groups of participants at his university. He puts the names of all the participants in a hat. The first 20 names he assigns to Group A and the last 20 he assigns to Group B. Group A is given a list of words that are very emotional in content (e.g., passion, murder). Group B is given a list of words that are neutral in content (e.g., houseplant, desk). He then measures how many words each group is able to remember after being distracted for 5 minutes by watching a video about the history of the university. He finds that Group A remembers 15% more words than Group B. Refer to Research Study 3.4 above to answer the following question. If Dr. Kang decided against using random assignment, which of the following would be threatened? a. The covariance of the study b. The temporal precedence of the study c. The internal validity of the study d. The external validity of the study e. The construct validity of the study

Answer 1

Answer: C

Explanation: The one that would be threatened by using a random assignment is the internal validity of the study.

Internal validity is defined as the grade in which a study can prove relations between the variables; by using a random assignment, there will be variables that weren't taking into consideration and for instance, the internal validity will be lowered.

Answer 2

Answer:

c. The internal validity of the study

Explanation:

The internal validity of a study is the term that refers to the ability of a study to show that it has a practical skill, through how well the results of that study have been established. in other words, this validity refers to a study that presents a good performance, because it was established with a correct design, well-developed variables, well-established results evaluation, among other factors, which show that the study was carried out correctly, so your results can be reliable.

If Dr. Kang decided not to use random assignment, the study's internal validity could be a threat to prove the truth, since we have little information on how the entire study was conducted.