Question

Dr. Fletcher is interested in whether joining a fraternity/sorority causes people to become more concerned about their attractiveness and appearance. He recruits a group of 55 freshmen (25 males, 30 females) who are planning to go through fraternity/sorority recruitment on his campus. After they join, he gives them a measure of attractiveness/appearance concern (the Body Concern Scale). Refer to Research Study 12.1 above to answer the following question. In addition to measuring the group of participants who joined a fraternity/sorority, Dr. Fletcher decides to give the same measure to another group of 55 participants who decided to not join a fraternity/sorority. This type of design is known as a/an:

Answer 1

Nonequivalent control group design is the correct answer.

The nonequivalent control group design is one of the most frequently used social research methods. In a nonequivalent control group design, we have a group that has not been exposed to an activity or treatment being compared to another group that has been. In this case, Dr. Fletcher is willing to compare a group of 55 freshmen who are planning to go through fraternity/sorority recruitment to another group of 55 freshmen who have decided not to join a fraternity/sorority.