Exercise and mental health. A researcher is interested in the effects of exercise on mental health and he proposes the following study: Use stratified random sampling to ensure representative proportions of 18-30, 31-40 and 41- 55 year folds from the population. Next, randomly assign half the subjects from each age group to exercise twice a week, and instruct the rest not to exercise. Conduct a mental health exam at the beginning and at the end of the study, and compare the results.
(a) What type of study is this?
(b) What are the treatment and control groups in this study?
(c) Does this study make use of blocking? If so, what is the blocking variable?
(d) Does this study make use of blinding?
(e) Comment on whether or not the results of the study can be used to establish a causal relationship between exercise and mental health, and indicate whether or not the conclusions can be generalized to the population at large.
(f) Suppose you are given the task of determining if this proposed study should get funding. Would you have any reservations about the study proposal?