Question: School psychologist wants to test the effectiveness of a new method for teaching reading. She recruits 500 first-grade students in District 203 and randomly divides them into two groups. Group 1 is taught by means of the new method while Group 2 is taught by traditional methods. The same teacher is assigned to teach both groups. At the end of the year, an achievement test is administered and the two groups are compared.
a. Is this an experiment or an observation?
b. If it's an experiment, what is the response variable? If it's an observation, what are they observing?
c. Think of some of the factors in the study. How are they controlled?
d. How are the factors that are not controlled dealt with?
e. Which group serves as the control group?
f. Identify the subjects.