10 lab mice were used in a medical study. The technician was asked to treat the
ID: 3200860 • Letter: 1
Question
10 lab mice were used in a medical study. The technician was asked to treat the mice with one of two treatments, so that there are 5 mice per treatment. The mice were all in the same container, where the technician reached in to select the first mouse, and gave it Treatment 1. He repeated this process with the next 4 mice, also giving them Treatment 1. He then gave the rest of the mice Treatment 2. Unknown to him was the reality that some of the mice had an undetectable "nimble gene", such that the mice with the gene were less likely to be caught by the technician early on. In short, more mice without the gene received Treatment 1, while more mice with the gene received Treatment 2. The presence of the gene was of no interest to the study. But as luck would have it, the gene and the treatments had a special interaction that distorted the results. What were the experimental units of this experiment? What kind of variable is the presence of the "nimble gene"? What could have been done to minimize the distortion of the results? Explain why that could help. Be specific; use the context in your response.Explanation / Answer
a) Lab mice are the experimental units of this experiment.
b) Presence of "nimble gene" is lurking variable i.e. an extraneous variable
c) We can control lurking variable. Three control strategies are control groups, placebos, and blinding. These can be done to minimize the distortion of the result
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