AP Psychology assignment
To perform an experiment to test the memory of words, I would first create a
hypothesize about how much repetition is required to memorize a list of words, my
hypothesis would be that the longer a list of words is rehearsed, the more words are
remembered when a subject is asked to recall them 5 minutes later.
For the sample I would select the participants from the population randomly, I would
randomly ask people to be part of the experiment without paying any regard to their
gender, intelligence, or anything else, since that would slant the experiment. Because
I am not testing any of these factors, I would not want them to influence my
experiment. To select a sample properly randomly without bias I must select from the
entire population. If I only picked from high school students, I would have a biased
sample. On the other hand, I could restrict my hypothesis by adding "among high
school students" to it.
In this experiment, the thing which changes as part as an experiment is the amount of
time the test subject may look at the list of the words. The dependent variable is what
is supposed to change as part of the experiment. In this case it is the number of
words which are remembered when the subject is asked to write down the words they
remembered. I would then divide the subjects into multiple groups randomly. I would
assign some of the groups to be the experimental groups, and each of the groups are
allowed to look at the list of words for a different amount of time. I would then assign
one of the groups to be the control group which is only allowed to look at the the list
for one second.
I would then make sure all the other variables remain the same. I would make sure the
list of words was the same and presented the same way. I would make sure that there
was not anything in the room which would distract the participants. To reduce
experimental bias, I would not let the people conducting the experiment know how
long the subjects looked at the list of words, because a computer would be the one
showing the list of words. The computer would be pre-programmed to randomly vary
the length of time the words are shown according to what group the participants are
in. In addition, I would set a time limit to how long the participants may write down the
words to keep all experiments the same. Also, I would set guidelines for what
constitutes a word being remembered
This is how I would design my experiment to test how the length of time one may look
at the list of words affects how well one remembers the list