Reference no: EM132535592
Crickets are ectotherms, which means that the rate of their physiological processes and overall metabolism are influenced by the temperature of the environment. Thus, at warmer temperatures, the physiological processes of crickets occur at a faster rate than at colder temperatures. Consequently, a scientist named George Pierce expected temperature would have a profound effect on aspects of cricket behavior, such as chirping rate. To investigate this idea, Pierce measured the chirping rate of crickets outside his home over several nights. Each time he measured a cricket's chirping rate, he also recorded the ground temperature. He ended his study with a total of 50 measurements of chirping rate and ground temperature.
1. What type of scientific study did Pierce conduct?
2. What is the independent variable?
2a. What is the dependent variable?
3. What might be Pierce's hypothesis?
4. If this study is an experiment, what are the treatments? Which, if any, treatment is the control group?
5. What was the sample size in this study?
6. List three potentially confounding variables that were or should have been controlled in this study.
Study 2
The placebo effect is when a person senses an improvement in their symptoms even when the substance that they have been given has no therapeutic effect. Scientists are interested in knowing whether it was necessary to deceive a person into thinking they are taking a therapeutic drug rather than a placebo. In a clinical study, a group of researchers had two groups of individuals who were experiencing mild arthritic pain, one group of 175 individuals was given a placebo and told that it was a therapeutic drug (these individuals were deceived). The other group of 172 individuals was given a placebo and told that it was a placebo (they were not deceived). The participants were then asked to rate the amount of pain they felt.
7. What type of scientific study did the scientists conduct?
8. What is the independent variable?
8a. What is the dependent variable?
9. What might be the scientists' hypothesis?
10. If this study is an experiment, what are the treatments? Which, if any, treatment is the control group?
11. What was the sample size in this study?
12. List three potentially confounding variables that were or should have been controlled in this study