A researcher is interested in the effects of exercise on mental health and he pr

Question

A researcher is interested in the effects of exercise on mental health and he proposes the following study: Use stratified random sampling to ensure representative proportions of 18-30, 31-40 and 41- 50 year olds from the population. Next, randomly assign half the subjects from each age group to exercise twice a week, and instruct the rest not to exercise. Conduct a mental health exam at the beginning and at the end of the study, and compare the results.

a) What type of study is this?

b) what are the treatment and control groups in this study?

c) what is the blocking variable? d) Does this study make use of blinding?

e) Can the result of this study can be used to establish a casual relationship between exercise and mental health?

Explanation / Answer

Solution:

(a) This is an Experiment.
(b) The treatment group is the group that exercises 2 times a week, the control group is
the one that does not exercise.
(c) The blocks are 18-30 year olds, 31-40 year olds 41-55
year olds.
(d) No. The patients know if they are in the group that exercises or the one that doesn’t.
(e) One can establish a causal relationship and one can generalize to the population at
large. One possible issue is how much the patients used to exercise before the experiment. Maybe some active people were sent to the no-exercise group and viceversa.

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