SOCIOL 2Z03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Western Electric, The Control Group, Random Assignment
12 Oct 2016
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Conditions required to establish a causal relationship: Experiment: an operation or procedure carried out under controlled conditions in order to test a hypothesis. Used to examine cause-and-effect relations between an iv (stimulus) and dv. Involves manipulation of the iv to examine its effects on the dv, while holding constant extraneous variables (zs) Also involves random assignment of participants to various levels of the iv. Cepeda et al. (2008) ran a series of experiments to examine the impact of study intervals on test scores. Iv= length of time between two review sessions on test material. Dv = score on test of material. 1300 students randomly assigned to one of two groups. Experimental group: two days between reviewing material. Control group: few minutes between reviewing material. Experimental group achieved higher scores on test. The hawthorne effect: a term coined in reference to a series of productivity studies at the hawthorne plant of the.
