A researcher interested in the effects of humor on memory randomly assigns 16 participants to either the humor group or the no-humor group.The humor group reads humorous sentences and the no-humor group reads non-humorous sentences.On a later memory test, the researcher finds that in terms of the direction of the means, the humor group had better memory than the no-humor group, but this effect was not significant (p = 0.06).What should this researcher do?
A) She can attempt to increase her statistical power by using a two-tailed hypothesis test rather than a one-tailed hypothesis test.
B) She can abandon the study of humor on memory because given her results it is obvious that humor has no effect on memory.
C) Because the effect looks as though it is barely missing significance, she can just treat it as though the effect exists and communicate this exciting effect to her colleagues.
D) Because the effect looks as though it is barely missing significance and her sample size is fairly small, she can increase her sample size to increase her statistical power to detect the effect.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The researcher should increase her sample size to increase statistical power to detect the effect. A p-value of 0.06 suggests that the effect is close to being significant, and increasing the sample size may help to reduce the likelihood of a Type II error (false negative) and increase the chances of detecting a significant effect. Choosing a two-tailed hypothesis test (A) would not increase the power of the study, as it simply divides the alpha level in half between the two tails. Abandoning the study (B) is not warranted based on the current results, as there may still be an effect of humor on memory. Treating the effect as though it exists (C) would be misleading and unjustified.

A Researcher Interested in the Effects of Humor on Memory