Dr. Hershey wants to study the impact of eating chocolate on problem solving abi

Question

Dr. Hershey wants to study the impact of eating chocolate on problem solving ability. She plans to offer people either no chocolate, 1 piece of chocolate, 2 pieces of chocolate, or 3 pieces of chocolate, and then have each person take a test involving logic problems. She expects that people who consume more chocolate will be able to solve more of the problems. She has 60 people signed up to participate in her study.  

1. What is Dr. Hershey’s operational definition of “problem solving ability?”

2. What is the level/scale of measurement of the DV? Explain your answer.

3. What are two control variables that Dr. Hershey should have in this study?

4. Participants will vary in how much they like chocolate. What kind of variable is this? Explain.

Explanation / Answer

Dr. Herhsye's operational definition of "problem-solving ability" is the performance of the participants in a logic problems test. This is because the test is being as a tool to measure problem-solving ability, allowing it to be studied in numerical values. The level of measurement for the DV would be interval scale. This is because most psychological tests measuring abilities assign scores to the individual that have evenly distributed intervals. However, there is no true zero point (we cannot define exactly what is having no problem-solving ability at all). The control variables in the study should be minimising age differences because age can play a huge role in problem-solving ability and standardized conditions of test administration (including time and place). This is an example of a participant variable as it refers to an individual's preference. This is a type of extraneous variable because differing individual characteristics of participants can confound the results.

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