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A psychologist is measuring the effect of a relaxing scent on cognitive performance by having participants take a complex, two-hour pretest in a normal room, followed immediately by a two-hour posttest in a scented room. Identify the specific type of maturation threat that is most likely to affect this study and explain how it would influence the posttest scores.
Question: A psychologist is measuring the effect of a relaxing scent on cognitive performance by having participants take a complex, two-hour pretest in a normal room, followed immediately by a two-hour posttest in a scented room. Identify the specific type of maturation threat that is most likely to affect this study and explain how it would influence the posttest scores.
Sample answer: The specific type of maturation threat most likely to affect this study is fatigue. Because participants are taking four hours of complex tests back-to-back, they will naturally become fatigued, which could cause their posttest scores to decrease regardless of the experimental treatment.
Key points:
- The study is likely affected by fatigue.
- Fatigue is a natural physiological change that occurs between the pretest and posttest.
- This natural change could be the actual cause of any observed differences in the dependent variable over time.
Rubric: Full credit is awarded for identifying fatigue as the specific physiological change and explaining that natural exhaustion over the four-hour period could affect posttest performance, rather than the scent.
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Research Methods in Psychology - 4th American Edition @ KPU
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A psychologist is measuring the effect of a relaxing scent on cognitive performance by having participants take a complex, two-hour pretest in a normal room, followed immediately by a two-hour posttest in a scented room. Identify the specific type of maturation threat that is most likely to affect this study and explain how it would influence the posttest scores.