A Researcher Was Interested in Whether Different Types of Music

question 32

Essay

A researcher was interested in whether different types of music have different effects on an
individual's appetite. The researcher randomly breaks his psychology class into two groups each
containing 100 students. The first group is told to arrive at the testing facility at 9:00 AM, right after
breakfast has ended. The students in the first group are placed in a room with snacks and instructed sit quietly and listen to rock-n-roll music. The second group is told to arrive at the testing facility at 11:00 AM, right before lunch starts. The students in the second group are placed in a room with snacks and instructed sit quietly and listen to hip-hop music. The researchers measure the amount of food eaten by each group and they find that the group listening to the hip-hop music ate significantly more food than the group listening to rock-n-roll music. What variable is most likely confounding this study's results?

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Definitions:

Rejection Region

The range of values in hypothesis testing that if the test statistic falls within, leads to the rejection of the null hypothesis.

Alternative Hypothesis

Represents a statement that contradicts the null hypothesis and is considered true if the null hypothesis is proven to be false, often denoting the presence of an effect or difference.

Test Statistic

A value calculated from sample data to evaluate a hypothesis in statistical hypothesis testing.

Sampling Distribution

The probability distribution of a statistic (for example, a mean, variance) obtained from a large number of samples drawn from a specific population.