Why is it important to make sure that different participant groups are roughly equivalent in terms of personal characteristics (e.g. ,age,gender)before any independent variable is introduced?
A)It is important to treat all research participants equally so that they feel that they are not being manipulated.
B)Research ethics forbid any experiment to take place when the participant groups are fundamentally different from each other.
C)It is important so that no major differences between the groups unduly bias the results of the experiment.
D)This is generally what happens when participants are allowed to choose their own groups.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Ensuring that participant groups are roughly equivalent in terms of personal characteristics helps to control for any major differences between the groups that could unduly bias the results of the experiment. This is important because the goal of research is to study the effects of the independent variable while minimizing the influence of extraneous variables. By creating roughly equivalent groups, researchers can be more confident that any differences observed between the groups are due to the independent variable and not some other factor related to the characteristics of the participants.

Why Is It Important to Make Sure That Different Participant