In the article, A Comparison of the Cell Phone Driver and the Drunk Driver, researchers are attempting to find a causal link between using cell phone use and impaired driving. They do this by testing if the the condition of the driver affects driving performance. The condition of the driver is there independent variable. Researcher’s operationalized the independent variable by creating a control, distracting participants by talking to them on a cell phone and giving the participants alcohol to drink so they could under the influence of alcohol (p. 382).
To test the hypothesis, participants carried on a casual conversation with a research assistant that was engaging and unique to the participant to measure the effects of cell phone distraction …show more content…
The research method of this study was within subjects design. Researchers only measured the variables in this study under 3 different conditions in three different conditions where all participants experienced all conditions. These conditions were created by establishing a baseline control group, having participants drink a mixture of vodka and orange juice to attain a blood alcohol level of .08 percent, and have a conversation with a researcher on a cellphone. This aligns with the goal of the study to establish a relationship between cellphones and drunk driving. Temporal precedence helps to establish causality by showing a cause and effect relationship. The study did establish temporal precedence by showing cellphone usage causes impairment just like drunk driving, where the cause is the cellphone usage and the effect is the impairment. The third variable problem is when two variables appear to be related but there is an unknown variable that is causing the link. Since the researchers effectively operationalized their independent variables and dependent variables, they were effectively able to control for the third variable problem. Additionally, the participants all were placed under strict controls for testing such as an exact blood alcohol level and the same driving conditions, researchers did a good job to minimize the third variable …show more content…
First demand characteristics can make an experiment bias because the expectancy’s influence the participants. Since the researchers found two different results with cellphone usage and alcohol consumption demand characteristics did not impact the study since researchers were expecting different levels of impairment from both cellphone usage and alcohol consumption, where alcohol consumption was a much worse impairment. Next, testing threats are when a participant has taken the simulation before and do better on it the next time because they have already been exposed to the test. Since the researchers had the pace car brake randomly plus the sessions were counterbalanced on different days, testing threats are not much of a concern with this experiment. Lastly, instrumentation threats are when measuring instruments decay over time and give less accurate results. In this experiment it is not said if the instruments were calibrated or not however since they were used consistently they may not be precise in their measurements but they would record the information accurately which then could be adjusted if need be. Since the participants all experienced the same simulation, under the same conditions, and the data was recorded with the same sensors, there is not a instrumentation threat because nothing changed due to the fact that each task was the
To test the hypothesis, participants carried on a casual conversation with a research assistant that was engaging and unique to the participant to measure the effects of cell phone distraction …show more content…
The research method of this study was within subjects design. Researchers only measured the variables in this study under 3 different conditions in three different conditions where all participants experienced all conditions. These conditions were created by establishing a baseline control group, having participants drink a mixture of vodka and orange juice to attain a blood alcohol level of .08 percent, and have a conversation with a researcher on a cellphone. This aligns with the goal of the study to establish a relationship between cellphones and drunk driving. Temporal precedence helps to establish causality by showing a cause and effect relationship. The study did establish temporal precedence by showing cellphone usage causes impairment just like drunk driving, where the cause is the cellphone usage and the effect is the impairment. The third variable problem is when two variables appear to be related but there is an unknown variable that is causing the link. Since the researchers effectively operationalized their independent variables and dependent variables, they were effectively able to control for the third variable problem. Additionally, the participants all were placed under strict controls for testing such as an exact blood alcohol level and the same driving conditions, researchers did a good job to minimize the third variable …show more content…
First demand characteristics can make an experiment bias because the expectancy’s influence the participants. Since the researchers found two different results with cellphone usage and alcohol consumption demand characteristics did not impact the study since researchers were expecting different levels of impairment from both cellphone usage and alcohol consumption, where alcohol consumption was a much worse impairment. Next, testing threats are when a participant has taken the simulation before and do better on it the next time because they have already been exposed to the test. Since the researchers had the pace car brake randomly plus the sessions were counterbalanced on different days, testing threats are not much of a concern with this experiment. Lastly, instrumentation threats are when measuring instruments decay over time and give less accurate results. In this experiment it is not said if the instruments were calibrated or not however since they were used consistently they may not be precise in their measurements but they would record the information accurately which then could be adjusted if need be. Since the participants all experienced the same simulation, under the same conditions, and the data was recorded with the same sensors, there is not a instrumentation threat because nothing changed due to the fact that each task was the