Quizzol

QUESTION:

Q has been used to predict academic success. But what about other factors?

According to an article by Angela L. Duckworth and Martin E.P. Seligman in the journal Psychological Science, self-discipline is even a better predictor of academic success than IQ.

One way to measure self-discipline is the $1-now or $2-later test (which the researchers call the Delay Choice Task) in which we see if a subject would decline to accept a dollar bill now when told they could wait a week and get two dollars. Highly self-disciplined adolescents outperformed their more impulsive peers on every academic-performance variable, including report card grades.

Which of the following is correct?

This study is an experiment, since it was based on a random sample.

This study is an observation study since the researchers did not assign the students to one of the self-discipline categories.

This study is an experiment, since each subject was classified into a self-discipline category ($1-now or $2-later) and to report card grades.

This study is an observation study since the researchers did not assign the drivers to one of the driving behaviors.

ANSWER:

This study is an observation study since the researchers did not assign the students to one of the self-discipline categories.

Good job! A study is experimental if the researchers assigned the subjects to different values of the explanatory variable, and it's observational otherwise. In this case, since students were obviously not assigned to but rather only classified according to their personally-decided self-discipline category, this study was observational.

Posted by Cleveland on September 19, 2024