AP Psychology:

Research Methods Critique

Name: ____________________________________

An enterprising student at Rowland Hall decided to do an original experiment on racism that would be a distinct improvement (in his eyes) over previous published studies. However, the student’s description of the experiment is clear evidence that good intentions do not ensure good research skills. Read the description of his study and answer the questions that follow. If you need help, (this stuff is fairly difficult) you can ask questions in class or see me in my office.

Even though a lot of studies have been done on racism, Alan felt that all of them were "bad". Therefore, Alan decided to carry out an experiment of his own. He contacted 15 schools in the Salt Lake City area, but only one, East High School, was willing to let him conduct his study—on the condition that the teachers at the school would be able to select the students that would be used as subjects.

Over 60 names were given to Alan. He gave each subject a pre-test (which he designed) that gauged each subject’s level of racism. The 25 students who scored the highest on his test were selected as subjects. Since Alan knew that his subjects were fairly young, he tried to make his test simple by wording all of the questions in the same direction (i.e., agreement with each question always indicated racism.)

Alan gave the same test again (prior to exposing his subjects to a "group discussion"). He then selected only the 10 highest scoring "racists" to be used in his study.

Alan arranged for those ten subjects to meet for one hour each day for one week in the school’s faculty lounge. Alan planted three "confederates" in the group who consistently talked and behaved in a non-racist way (hopefully convincing the 10 racists to change their point of view).

After one week of meetings, Alan re-administered his racism test. He predicted that the mean score for all 10 subjects would significantly decrease because they had been exposed to non-racists for one week.

Wow, he was right. Prior to the meetings, the mean score on the questionnaire was 87.4 with a standard deviation of 20.85. After the discussion groups, the mean score was 83.13 with a standard deviation of 15.62. Because Alan found that the score on the racism questionnaire was lower after the group discussion, Alan concluded that his study clearly showed that racism could be reduced by group discussion.

1. What are AT LEAST three methodological problems with Alan’s research project?

 

 

 

 

2. What could you do to improve the methodology of his study?

 

 

 

 

 

3. What are possible alternative explanations for the outcome of Alan’s study?