Lab 1.

3 part 1

STAT 200: Lab Activity for Section 1.3.1

Experiments and Observational Studies - Learning objectives:

 Recognize that not every association implies causation

 Identify potential confounding variables in a study
 Distinguish between an observational study and a randomized experiment
 Recognize that only randomized experiments can lead to claims of causation
 Design and implement a randomized experiment

Activity 1: Do Visual Aids Affect Memorization?

As a class, we are going to perform a randomized experiment to answer this question. There will be
two treatment groups: Treatment 1 and Treatment 2, the purpose of the activity is to memorize as
many letters as possible. one response variable: correct number of letters. Each person must be
assigned to a group and perform the experiment individually.

1. First, we must randomly assign treatments. We do this by flipping a coin. If you have a coin on
you, use it, if you don’t use a digital coin: http://justflipacoin.com.

Heads: Treatment 1 Tails: Treatment 2

To which treatment are you assigned? _____________

2. Read all of this before starting: Use this Twenty five-second timer to perform your treatment.

Use the links to access your treatment: Treatment 1 (Heads) Treatment 2 (Tails)

Be sure to only look at your treatment group. During the 25 seconds you have, look at the grid of
letters in your treatment group and memorize as many letters as you can. Once the 25 seconds are
up close your treatment group and then fill in your grid below. You can also use the timer projected
on the overhead on the front of your class to time your treatment. Once everyone is finished the TA
will project the answer key so you can score your result.
Your Grid to fill in:

Your score (total number correct): ______________

3. Enter your value on the appropriate number

line (graph) in your lab classroom based on
your assigned treatment.

6/12/24 © - Pennsylvania State University

 Lab 1.3 part 1

Activity 2: Association or Causation?

After collecting data and analyzing the results, researchers published the following statements to
conclude their findings.

For each statement, indicate whether the researchers are implying causation or just indicating
association without causation.

1. The bigger the engagement ring, the shorter the marriage

2. Elementary students exposed to environmental education classes tend to have higher rates of
recycling.

3. Male fertility rates and the death rate of men in car crashes are both decreasing.

4. Want to be happy? Smile more!

Each statement below describes an association. For each, indicate whether the statement implies
causation or just association and indicate a possible confounding variable behind the association.

5. Sales of used electric cars increase as gas prices decrease.

6. Smaller hands lead to lower typing accuracy in young students

Activity 3: Note taking

Research Question: Should students take notes on a laptop or with pen and paper?

Taking notes on laptops rather than in longhand is increasingly common. Many researchers have
suggested that laptop note taking is less effective than longhand note taking for learning. Prior
studies have primarily focused on students’ capacity for multitasking and distraction when using
laptops. This cited paper1 summarizes three studies on this topic. In this activity, we will consider
the first study. The authors hypothesize that even when laptops are used solely to take notes,
they may still impair learning because their use results in shallower processing.

67 students, approximately an equal number of males and females, were recruited from the
Princeton University subject pool. In this study, the goal was to determine college students’
understanding of video talks (TED Talks) when viewed in small groups. Each video was about 15
minutes in length and covered topics that would be interesting but not common knowledge.

Prior to viewing the videos, students were randomly assigned to a room where they either took
notes: 1) longhand on paper or 2) on Internet-less laptops while watching the videos. They
were not given any strategies regarding taking notes.

1
Mueller, P. and Oppenheimer, D. (2014). The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard: Advantages of
Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking. Psychological Science, Vol. 25(6) 1159–1168

6/12/24 © - Pennsylvania State University

 Lab 1.3 part 1

Participants were next taken to a lab where they completed three distractor tasks which lasted
about 30 minutes. After this, participants responded to both factual and conceptual questions
about the lecture. The questions were graded by a person who didn’t know which method was
used to take the notes.

Three key findings from this study are:

 no difference in scores between laptop users and longhand note-takers on the factual questions.
 with the conceptual questions, laptop users performed significantly worse.
 laptop users wrote an average of 309 words compared to an average of 173 words for those
taking notes longhand. This was also a significant difference.

Understanding the research:

1. Identify the explanatory variable.

2. Identify the three response variables when considering the findings.

3. Is this a randomized experiment or an observational study?

Analysis:
4. Why do you think the researchers used videos instead of a live speaker?

5. What are some confounding factors?

This study has been cited in other peer-reviewed journals more than 1,200 times. However, when other
scholars have repeated the same experiment, they often haven’t been able to get the same results. We
will talk about replication of studies in Chapter 4.
1
Mueller, P. and Oppenheimer, D. The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard: Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop
Note Taking, Psychological Science, Volume 25(6): 1159 –1168 (2014).

Activity 4: Wake times

Research Question: Whether You Are a Night Owl or Early Bird May Affect How Much You Move 2

Morning, day, or evening chronotypes differ by the circadian timing of alertness and the
preferred timing of sleep. It has been suggested that evening chronotype is associated with low
physical activity (PA), an estimated metabolic equivalent (MET) value, and high sedentary time
(SED) in minutes/day. The aim was to investigate whether such an association is confirmed by
objectively measured PA and SED.
The study, one of the first to objectively track daily movements of a large sample of early birds
and night owls, suggests that knowing our chronotype might be important for our health.
Researchers at the University of Oulu in Finland turned to some of their fellow Finns 3. Years
before, more than 12,000 had become part of an ongoing study of the health of almost every
child born in Oulu in 1966.

6/12/24 © - Pennsylvania State University

 Lab 1.3 part 1

The researchers checked in with almost 6,000 of them still living in the Oulu area and 5,156
(2239 men and 2917 women) were willing to participate in a follow-up study. These men and
women, all age 46, initially visited the university for an in-person exam, which included medical
and other tests and a variety of questionnaires, including one designed to determine their
chronotype2.
The researchers then gave each volunteer an activity tracker and asked them to wear it for two
weeks, providing objective data about their physical activities. Then the scientists compared
how people moved with how their internal clocks chimed.
The study found that the evening chronotype was associated with low objectively measured PA
in both sexes and with high SED in men, even after adjustments for established potential
confounders

Understanding the Research:

1. Identify the explanatory variable.

2. How many response variables are found in this study?

A. one B. two C. more than two

3. Is this a randomized experiment or an observational study?

Analysis:
4. What are some confounding factors?

5. Can these results be generalized to young adults (18-30) years in age?

chronotype questionnaire2 https://www.cet-surveys.com/index.php?sid=61524

2
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/12/well/move/whether-you-are-a-night-owl-or-early-bird-may-affect-how-
much-you-move.html
3
Nauha L, Jurvelin H, Ala-Mursula L, et al. Chronotypes and objectively measured physical activity and sedentary
time at midlife. Scand J Med Sci Sports. 10: 1930-1938 (2020).

Activity 5: Memorization Score revisited

1. Look at the graphs in your lab classroom after all students have added their score. Where do
most of the treatment 1 scores seem to be located on the graph? What about the treatment 2
scores?

2. Based on these graphs, do you think that visual aids are associated with a higher memorization
score, on average?

3. If the answer was ‘yes’ (whether or not it actually was), could we make the claim that visual aids
help in memorization, based on this experiment? Why or why not?

6/12/24 © - Pennsylvania State University