Experimental Design: Sleep Deprivation#

How does sleep deprivation affect your ability to drive? A recent study measured the effects on 19 mixed drivers. Each driver participated in two experimental sessions: one after normal sleep and one after 31 hours of total sleep deprivation. Experimental Design: Sleep Deprivation In each session, performance was measured on a variety of tasks including a reaction time.

The following questions ask you to correctly identify/explain parts of the experimental design of this study.

Variables#

Please identify which of the following variables is the explanatory variable, and which is the response variable.

Treatments#

Which of the following are the treatments used in the experiment?

Answer Section#

  • Normal Sleep

  • 31 hours of sleep deprivation

  • 19 hours of sleep deprivation

  • 19 mixed drivers

  • 31 mixed drivers

Experimental Units#

Which of the following correctly identifies the experimental units of the study?

Answer Section#

  • 19 mixed drivers

  • 31 hours of sleep deprivation

  • 19 hours of sleep deprivation

  • 31 mixed drivers

Lurking Variables#

Were there any lurking variables in this study?

Answer Section#

  • Yes, there are lurking variables.

  • No, there are no lurking variables.

Treatment Order#

Which of the following describes the issue with the treatment order in this study?

Answer Section#

  • There are no issues with the treatment order.

  • The second treatment might have artificially higher scores.

  • The first treatment might have artificially higher scores.

Control/Placebo#

Please identify which of the following is the control treatment in this study.

Answer Section#

  • Normal Sleep

  • 31 hours of sleep deprivation

  • 19 hours of sleep deprivation

  • 19 mixed drivers

  • 31 mixed drivers

Blinding#

Please identify what the importance of blinding is in this study.

Answer Section#

  • Blinding is important the researchers evaluating the performance of the subject’s cannot bias their evaluations based on the treatment.

  • Blinding is important to limit bias, but there is no need for blinding in this study.

  • Blinding is not important.

Attribution#

Problem is from the OpenStax Introductory Statistics 2e textbook, licensed under the CC-BY 4.0 license.
Image representing the Creative Commons 4.0 BY license.