A45340170 Sec 006 Mike Killian Case Study #5

1. How does this experimental set up attempt to deal with research progression effects?
-It deals with research progression by keeping the confederate unknown to the test subjects until the very end. Knowing that the person is a confederate would greatly change the responses of the people being tested. It also deals with research progression effects by keeping a consistency of measurements using questionnaires

2. How does the experimental set up attempt to deal with reactivity effects?
-It deals with reactivity effects by once again not allowing the subject to know that the confederate is part of the study. They also deal with it by allowing the subjects to choose if they want the video deleted or not since they were not aware of the video being recorded. This makes the responses from the subjects authentic and not just for the camera.

3. What potential sample deficiencies might exist in a sample drawn exclusively from Com 300? How
are Com 300 students different from most people? - A sample drawn just from COM 300 class would have possible sample deficiencies because the majority of the people in COM 300 have taken multiple COM classes and understand the research better. They are also more likely to be outgoing, creative, and more open people, samples from com 300 are going to have more knowledge about the research processes and how things are done in COM.

4. Look at the survey items from the Indicators of the Four Empathy-Process Variables questionnaire
provided in case study #4. What potential problems exist for these indicators? How might they promote answers that are NOT indicative of the actual extent to which the subjects are high on these four empathy-process variables possess these dimensions of empathy? -They may not be indicative of the actual high score for the Four Empathy-process variables because people would see those answers and put down a higher number because that is how it should be. People could put a higher number than they truly act on. They may sway their scores higher so the results do not make them look bad. 5. What potential validity problems are NOT addressed in this experimental set up? Are there problems with history? Maturation? Researcher effects? Test sensitization? Others? - Test sensitization because they use questionnaires which a test subject may over play their true feelings towards the statement just because it is a questionnaire. Also maturation could sway the research being conducted, they would need to make sure that they use a wide range of test subjects because a college student may be less empathetic than an older person just because the older person has matured attitudes.