To examine the effectiveness of empathy training on children's sharing behavior, 2 months of training are provided to 3-year-old children living in rural Georgia. Six months later, the children's sharing behaviors are measured and compared to their pre-training sharing behavior. Improvements are considered the result of the empathy training. Which factor is a potential source of internal invalidity?
A) All the children were from rural Georgia.
B) Children's sharing behavior may improve with the simple passage of time.
C) The observers of the sharing behavior may disagree.
D) Children who were the best sharers before the training were not necessarily the best after the training.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The potential source of internal invalidity is the possibility of the children's sharing behavior naturally improving over time and not necessarily due to the empathy training. This is known as a maturation threat to internal validity. The other options (A, C, and D) are not sources of internal invalidity in this study.

To Examine the Effectiveness of Empathy Training on Children's Sharing