5. Researchers conducted a naturalistic study of children between the ages of 5

Question

5. Researchers conducted a naturalistic study of children between the ages of 5 and 7 years. The researchers visited classrooms during class party celebrations. As a measure of hyperactivity, they recorded the number of times children left their seats The researchers found a strong positive correlation between sugary snacks offered at the parties and hyperactivity. Based on these findings, the researchers concluded that sugar causes hyperactivity. a. Explain why people may easily accept the conclusion of the study described above? Include in your explanation a misunderstanding of correlational studies b. As a follow-up study, the researchers are designing an experiment to test whether sugar causes hyperactivity. For the experiment, please do the followingg o State a possible hypothesis. Operationally define the independent and dependent variables. o Describe how random assignment can be achieved, and why it is important for experiments.

Explanation / Answer

a. People are likely to accept the conclusion of the study as it seems that there would a logical relationship between consumption of sugar and hyperactivity, explained by the body's physiological functioning, However, one should not forget to examine that this correlational relationship cannot be thought of as a causal one, as several other variables may, in fact, be playing a role in this relationship. In this case, the study is conducted in a class party setting, wherein it would be natural for children to be more active than usual.

b. The possible hypotheses, in this case, would be:

The operational definitions are as follows:

For this experiment, random assignment can be achieved by having two or more groups of students, who may eat no sugary snack and others who may eat a stipulated number of sugary snacks. It is important to randomly distribute students to different groups as this decreases the chances of participant variables cofounding the independent-dependent variable relationship.

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