Describe how Alex could conduct an experiment to investigate the
effectiveness of doodling in school to see if students will daydream less
in a biology class.
Hypothesis: Alex could come up with a directional hypothesis that states
that students who doodle for over the 25-minute session will not day dream.
Sample: Alex could use opportunity sampling since the students are readily
available in the Biology 101 class as it is less time consuming. He will recruit
students in their first and second year who have been observed to lack
concentration in the Biology classes. The sample could contain 15 males and
15 female students who are enrolled in the Biology 101 class and will be
studied from 8:45am - 9:40 am on two days.
Method: Alex could conduct a field experiment method since the students
are being studied in Kirawa College which is their natural location. The IV is
doodling and can be operationalized by giving participants a 5-page booklet
with different animal designs where they can shade in with pencil if they
want. Both groups will listen to a 25-minute boring Cell Biology lecture
delivered in the same monotone by the Biology Professor. Alex could use a
repeated measures design to make good comparisons between the same
participants. The DV is daydreaming and could be operationalised by a
questionnaire with a rating scale asking about how excited they were about
the lecture and how bored they were about the lecture on a 7-point scale; 0=
extremely excited to 7= extremely bored. Ten open ended questions can also
be asked such as; "Did you drift away into your own thoughts during the
lecture" or "Do you mind sharing what the Professor said about cell division".
Two participant observers who pretend to be teaching assistants could
observe those who doodled so as to see if their responses show any
day-dreaming. They could just note down the participants who doodled and