Research Design Day 1 Homework

1. a) What is a theory?
b) What is wrong with the statement Evolution is just a theory, not a
fact. So, I dont have to believe it.?
c) What is inductive reasoning? Is it certain?
2. a) What is a hypothesis?
b) What is a null hypothesis?
c) Why do we need to have both?
3. Explain the relationship between the independent and the
dependent variable

4. a) You are testing how effective a plant fertilizer is. The group of
plants that you gave the fertilizer to has an average height of 10.05
inches. The group of plants that did not get any fertilizer has an
average height of 9.96 inches. Do you think the fertilizer
significantly affected plant growth? Why or why not?

b) What might be needed to determine how effective that fertilizer is?

5. Confirmatory vs exploratory: What types of experiments are these?
a) You just invented Chemical XYZ and you have never seen its effects.
You want to find out its effect on athletes 40-yard dash times. You
have 10 athletes run a 40-yard dash, and then give them chemical
XYZ and test them again. What type of experiment if this?
b) Several small studies have suggested that chemical 46JQ causes
puppies to grow at 2 times their natural growth rate. You devise a

larger, better-funded experiment to test the effect of chemical 46JQ

on puppy growth rate. What type of experiment is this?
c) Design an example of a confirmatory study.

6. Observational vs. Experimental

a) A group of women who have had kidney transplants is followed over
the course of 10 years to determine if they have higher rates of
cervical cancer compared with women who have not had kidney
transplants. What type of study is this?
b) You separate a group of 100 people into two groups of 50. You give
one group a drug that you want to test, and you give the other
group a placebo. What type of study is this?
c) Men in Town A tend to have higher rates of heart disease. You follow
100 men in Town A for 20 years to determine if there is an underlying
cause in Town A that is responsible for the higher rates. What type of
study is this?

d) Design an example of an observational study.

e) Design an example of an experimental study.

7. What is research? Why do you think research is important? What is

one way you have benefitted from research?