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6 2 Experimental Design Research Methods in Psychology

between-subjects design

The first and probably the most important is the number of subjects and the duration of the experiment. If you are not limited in the number of subjects, then you can safely choose the between subject design. It is also worth taking care that the participants could not know which group they belong to, the experimental or the control group.

Frequently asked questions about between-subjects designs

Independent variables can be variables that the researcher manipulates or variables that cannot be standardized across participants, such as subject characteristics (age, race, education, etc). This type of design is often called an independent measures design because every participant is only subjected to a single treatment. This lowers the chances of participants suffering boredom after a long series of tests or, alternatively, becoming more accomplished through practice and experience, skewing the results. Placebo effects are interesting in their own right (see Note 6.28 “The Powerful Placebo”), but they also pose a serious problem for researchers who want to determine whether a treatment works. Figure 6.2 “Hypothetical Results From a Study Including Treatment, No-Treatment, and Placebo Conditions” shows some hypothetical results in which participants in a treatment condition improved more on average than participants in a no-treatment control condition.

Examples of this study design

Within-subjects designs have more statistical power due to the lack of variation between the individuals in the study because participants are compared to themselves. Researchers will assign each subject to only one treatment condition in a between-subjects design. In contrast, in a within-subjects design, researchers will test the same participants repeatedly across all conditions. For example, there would be three groups of subjects, each receiving one of the three treatment conditions. To prevent bias, the participants should be randomly assigned to either the control group or one of the experimental conditions.

Experiment 2b: Between-Subject Design With Confidence Ratings

But factorial designs can also include only non-manipulated independent variables, in which case they are no longer experiments but are instead non-experimental in nature. This can be conceptualized as a 2 × 2 factorial design with mood (positive vs. negative) and self-esteem (high vs. low) as non-manipulated between-subjects factors. In many factorial designs, one of the independent variables is a non-manipulated independent variable.

Participants were informed that they would be presented with each of the words from the study phase (regardless of production condition) as well as an equal number of “new” words that they had not studied (i.e., foils). Test items were presented one at a time in a randomized order, preceded by a 500 ms fixation stimulus (“+”). For each of the 240 test items, participants registered a “remember,” “know,” or “new” response using the “a,” “s,” or “d” keys, respectively. Responses were self-paced and participants were instructed to respond to each test item as accurately as possible.

Within-Subjects Experiments

Recall that in a simple between-subjects design, each participant is tested in only one condition. In a factorial experiment, the decision to take the between-subjects or within-subjects approach must be made separately for each independent variable. In a between-subjects factorial design, all of the independent variables are manipulated between subjects.

2 Non-Equivalent Groups Designs

You compare the dependent variable measures between groups to see whether the independent variable manipulation is effective. If the groups differ significantly, you can conclude that your independent variable manipulation likely caused the differences. Two features of the present experiments motivated us to adopt a fully Bayesian approach in handling our results (for further discussion, see Dienes, 2011; Fawcett, Lawrence, & Taylor, 2016).

Why is it necessary to center a covariate in Repeated Measures ANCOVA and is it possible to control for the influence ... - ResearchGate

Why is it necessary to center a covariate in Repeated Measures ANCOVA and is it possible to control for the influence ....

Posted: Fri, 06 Dec 2019 08:00:00 GMT [source]

Types of user research study designs

Below each item during the study phase was a “Next” button that became active after 2 s and when clicked proceeded to the next trial. Each trial began with a fixation cross (“+”) presented for 500 ms and an intertrial interval (intertribal interval [ITI]) of 500 ms was used. The words for each individual participant were drawn randomly from the full set of 240 words, as was the colour assignment (i.e., which stimulus set would be green and which would be purple). A sample of 25 participants enrolled at Dalhousie University took part in this experiment in exchange for partial course credit. During the study phase, the 120 items were presented one at a time in a randomized order. Each study phase trial consisted of a fixation stimulus (“+”) lasting 500 ms, followed by the study item for 2,000 ms.

This would mean that each participant will be tested in one and only one condition. Alternatively, all participants could be tested both when using the mobile version of the user interface and without using the mobile version of the user interface, as well as during work or weekends. Moreover, when assessing the existing usability, testing is carried out on a commercial version of the product, on a real-life product, and not on a prototype. However, you can also apply the between subjects design as well as within groups design at the design stage of testing. In the between subjects design, in which we examined each subject under each condition, this probability is absent. Note, this advantage of the between subjects design correlates with the previously described advantage of the longitudinal method over the between subjects method.

The first concerns the binary response measures (such as recognition accuracy) used in our initial experiments. For this reason we have analysed all binary measures using multilevel logistic regression within the Stan modelling language (Stan Development Team, 2013). As a concrete example, let’s say we wanted to introduce an exercise intervention for the treatment of depression. We recruit one group of patients experiencing depression and a nonequivalent control group of students experiencing depression. We first measure depression levels in both groups, and then we introduce the exercise intervention to the patients experiencing depression, but we hold off on introducing the treatment to the students. If the treatment is effective we should see a reduction in the depression levels of the patients (who received the treatment) but not in the students (who have not yet received the treatment).

between-subjects design

There would be no experimental or control groups because all participants undergo the same procedures. After providing informed consent, participants were provided with instructions detailing the study phase. It was also our intention to manipulate the spacing between the trials in this experiment.

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