Standardizing procedures across treatment conditions
A)minimizes variance within treatments.
B)maximizes variance within treatments.
C)guarantees that there is no systematic relationship between participant characteristics and the treatment conditions.
D)maximizes differences between groups.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Standardizing procedures across treatment conditions minimizes variance within treatments, which in turn helps to control for extraneous factors that could influence the outcome of the study. This improves the internal validity of the study by reducing the confounding effects of extraneous variables. In other words, by ensuring that all participants are treated in the same way, except for the independent variable being manipulated, researchers can be more confident that any observed differences between the treatment groups are actually due to the treatment and not some other factor. This is important for drawing valid conclusions from the study. Maximizing variance within treatments (B) and maximizing differences between groups (D) are not desirable goals in a study because they can introduce extraneous factors that can confound the results. Guaranteeing that there is no systematic relationship between participant characteristics and the treatment conditions (C) is not always possible or necessary, but standardizing procedures can help to minimize such relationships by ensuring that each participant is treated in the same way regardless of individual characteristics.

Standardizing Procedures Across Treatment Conditions