Dr. Rodriguez was interested in how quickly students help someone who has fallen and who was perceived as having a health problem as compared to someone who has fallen but was not perceived as having a health problem. Dr. Rodriguez was also interested in whether the number of students who witness the fall affected how quickly students would help the person who fell. Dr. Rodriguez recruited 18 college students and offered to pay them $5 each for participating in a psychological study. She randomly assigned students to each group. She had two confederates participate in the study; one used a cane for the study, and the other did not. Dr. Rodriguez had either one, three, or five students wait in what they were told was a waiting room before the study began. The confederates were instructed to fall shortly after all of the participants entered the waiting room. There was a one-way mirror in the room, and Dr. Rodriguez recorded how long it took for the participants to respond to the person who fell. After the study, Dr. Rodriguez thanked the participants and dismissed them. The results of the study are represented in the tables below. Assume all differences are significant. Dr. Rodriguez concluded that both the number of students in the room and whether the person who fell was perceived as having a health problem affected how quickly students responded to the person who fell. Person Perceived as Having a Health Problem
Number of Students Witnessing Seconds to Respond to the Person
the Fall Who Fell
1 25
3 60
5 180
Person Perceived as Having a Health Problem
Number of Students Witnessing Seconds to Respond to the Person
the Fall Who Fell
1 90
3 180
5 360
1. Identify the independent and dependent variable in this study.
2. Identify possible confounding variables.
3. Describe one trend in the data.
4. Calculate the mean number of seconds that it took participants to respond to the person they perceived as not having a health problem. Show your work.
5. Explain how one ethical flaw in this study can be corrected.
a. Explain the difference between descriptive and inferential statistics.
b. How do we know whether an observed difference can be generalized to other populations?