Problem: Suppose you are a psychologist who is interested in the effects of caffeine on
the eye-hand coordination of students enrolled at UMCP. Design an experiment to test the
hypothesis that caffeine enhances a student's ability to hit a baseball. Describe your
experiment by answering the following questions:
1) What are the independent and dependent variables?
The independent variable would be the caffeine. The results of the students' hitting of
the baseball would be the dependent variable.
2) What are the experimental conditions and what are the tasks for the experimenter, the
participants in
your experiment, and any other people you might ask to help?
The experimental conditions would be the same for all participants, probably in an indoor
stadium so the weather won't affect the students. The task for the experimenter would
be to make sure to have a control group, to have a wide variety and different types of
participants, to make sure all participants use the same equipment, and have controlled
amounts of caffeine. The tasks for the participants would be to carefully follow the
instructions of the experimenter, that is to hit the baseball.
3) Will you treat all the participants in the same way?
No, I would not treat all the participants in the same way. The control group would not
be given caffeine. However, I would treat all experimental groups the same because that
will give more accurate results. If the participants were not treated the same I would
not be able to accurately measure how much or how little the caffeine affected the
students.
4) How will you select the participants of your study so that they are representative of
the students enrolled at UMCP?
I would randomly chose participants of different ethnic groups, ages, weights, and
sexes.
5) What factors must be controlled when using the experimental method in this manner?
The factors that must be controlled in this experiment would be the amount of caffeine
consumed, the equipment used (must have same bat and baseball), and the environment in
which they will perform their assigned task. The environment should be indoors so that
weather will not affect the results.
6) Suppose your experiment provided evidence that caffeine enhances eye-hand
coordination. Would it be reasonable to expect, based on your results, that a pilot
would be better able to land an airplane if given caffeine?
No, since landing a plane and hitting a baseball are two very different skills. Landing
a plane requires more skill and the side effects of caffeine which are not evident in the
above experiment might show up in a pilot. Caffeine may cause some people to become
nervous and shake and that would not help a pilot land a plane. The only way to find out
would be to setup and experiment about the effects of caffeine on pilot landing planes.
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