Question

Questions 33-35. Based on the vignette below, answer the following questions. Vignette II. You become very interested in the large public interest in the iPhone. You decide to use the experimental method so you can try to understand the causes of fascination with the iPhone and be able to generalize your results to the larger population beyond the Apple Store employees. You recruit large numbers of participants, a representative sample of the larger population, and ran- domly assign them to treatment conditions described in the next paragraph. You observe that much of the fascination with the iPhone is with the patented multi-touch screen. To assess the impact of this screen on participants' desire to buy an iPhone, you randomly assign people to one of three groups. The first group, called the "see" group, views the iPhone through a glass case, running a preloaded 30-minute demonstration that is described by the experimenter. The second group, called the "touch" group, handles the iPhone for 30 minutes, and while they are guided through the same demonstration of features as the first group, they get to experience the multi-touch capability and move through the demonstration manually. A third group, the control group, is simply given some literature about the iPhone capabilities and are allowed to review the literature for 30 minutes. All groups are then asked how strong their interest is in buying an iPhone. You hypothesize that participants in the "touch" group will have the strongest interest in buying the iPhone, because they were able to directly experience the screen. 33. What type of research design is described in the vignette above? a. a single factor, two level design b. a single factor, multilevel design c. a 3 x 2 factorial design d. interrupted time series with nonequivalent control group 34. What would be the main difficulty in interpretation of the results if each participant was first given literature, then allowed to see the demonstration through the glass case, and finally al- lowed to "touch" the iPhone and manually run the demonstration? Note: Their desire to buy an iPhone was measured after each condition. a. participants would get very impatient and demand to be allowed to hold the iPhone b. differential mortality c. the desire to buy an iPhone will be influenced by earlier experiences in your study d. maturation 35. Any prior (before entering your study) experiences that participants might have in handling an iPhone might be considered what type of variable? a. independent variable b. confounding variable c. dependent variable d. control variable END Vignette Section (source for vignettes adopted from Dr. Pavia's work in 301)

Answer 1

33. The correct answer is Option B. This is a single factor, multilevel design.

34. The correct answer is Option C. This would be the main difficulty of the study.

35. The correct answer is Option B. This would be called the confounding variable.