Textbook Study Guide
IMPORTANT: This document is intended to guide your study of the textbook only. It does not
completely cover the content included in exams. Exams can include content from the book, lecture
slides, videos shown in class or online lectures, and other content discussed in class or online lectures.
Corresponding with “Lecture 13 – Experimental Designs”
Chapter 8: Experimental Designs




What is internal validity and how can it be affected by confounds?
What are posttest-only designs vs. pretest-posttest designs and what are the advantages/
disadvantages of each?
 What are “selection differences” and why should they be avoided?
 What is participant attrition (also known as mortality)?
 How might participant attrition decrease the internal validity of a study? In other words,
how might it confound a study’s results?
What are independent-groups designs vs. repeated-measures designs?
 Which of these is also referred to as between-subjects designs and which is also referred to as
within-subjects designs?
 What are the major confounds that can arise with repeated-measures designs? (I.e., order
effects, practice effects, etc.)
 How can counterbalancing be used to eliminate these confounds?
 Why is it difficult to completely counterbalance an experiment when there are more than
3 experimental trials/groups?
 Don’t worry about learning the “Latin squares” method.
 Why is it important to consider the amount of time between trials in a repeated-measures
design?
 What should be considered when trying to choose between an independent-groups and
repeated-measures design?
What are matched-pairs designs and when should they be used?
 What are the advantages to using matched-pairs designs over independent-groups and
repeated-measures designs?