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For each of the following scenarios, describe the confounding that the careless researcher forgot to eliminate

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For each of the following scenarios, describe the confounding that the careless researcher forgot to eliminate.

a. A researcher tested whether students learned more with visual aids in the form of handouts or in the form of slides. Handouts were used during a lecture on the biochemistry of memory and projected slides were used during a lecture on the biochemistry of emotion. Students’ comprehension was tested via a 10-item multiple-choice test at the end of each lecture. Students scored higher in the projected slides condition. The researcher concluded that slides were superior to handouts for aiding students’ understanding.

b. A researcher wanted to know whether students write more “from the heart” using handwriting or using a computer. Students signed up for the condition of their choice (computer or handwriting), and all students wrote a three-page essay on “my family.” Raters independently and blindly judged the emotional content of each essay on a 1 to 10 scale. The students’ essays were clearly more emotional in the handwriting condition. The researcher warned teachers that the use of computers in school will produce robotlike students.

c. A teacher wanted to know if the color of classrooms affects students’ behavior in any noticeable way. This question was prompted by two situations—the school’s having been recently painted pale yellow and that many students seemed hyperactive. The teacher checked conduct reports at the school and compared them to those of another school, one across town that had the same off-white walls that the teacher’s school used to have. The conduct reports at the off-white comparison school revealed far fewer instances of misbehavior. The teacher concluded that yellow rooms affect students’ behavior in negative ways.