Chapter Twelve

Designing and
Conducting, Experiments
with More than Two
Groups

PowerPoint Presentation created by

Dr. Susan R. Burns
Morningside College
Smith/Davis (c) 2005 Prentice Hall

Experimental Design: Adding to

the Basic Building Block
The

two-group design is the basic building

block.
Researchers typically want to move beyond
two-group designs so they can ask more
complicated and interesting questions.

Smith/Davis (c) 2005

The Multiple-Group Design

How

many IVs?

This chapter deals with experiments that use only

one IV.
Although one-IV experiments are simpler than
experiments that use multiple IVs, they are not
inferior in any way.
A well-designed

experiment with one IV is vastly

preferable to a sloppy experiment with many variables
thrown together.

Smith/Davis (c) 2005

The Multiple-Group Design

How Many Groups?

This question marks the difference between the multiplegroup design and the two-group design.
A multiple-group design compares three or more levels or
amounts of an IV.
A multiple-group design can have a control group and two or
more experimental groups.

We can compare three, four, five, or even more differing levels or

amounts of an IV.

A multiple-group design does not have to have a control group.

Smith/Davis (c) 2005

Psychological Detective

Suppose you wished to test more than three noise

conditions. Could you use a multiple-group design in
such a case? Why or why not?

Smith/Davis (c) 2005

The Multiple-Group Design

Assigning

Participants to Groups

After we decide to conduct a multiple-group

experiment, we must decide about assignment or
research participants to groups.
We may choose between independent groups
or correlated groups.

Smith/Davis (c) 2005

The Multiple-Group Design

Independent

samples

Groups of participants that are formed by random

assignment.
Random

assignment serves as an important

control procedure.

One of several steps experimenters take to ensure that

potential extraneous variables are controlled and avoid a
confounded experiment.

Smith/Davis (c) 2005

Random Selection

Is Cathy using random assignment or random selection in this

cartoon?
Because she is tasting chocolate Santas in a nonsystematic
way (rather than assigning Santas to groups), Cathys gluttony
illustrates random selection

Smith/Davis (c) 2005

The Multiple-Group Design

Correlated

samples (nonrandom assignment

to groups)

Matched sets
Participants

are matched on a variable that will

affect their performance on the DV (matching
variable).
Then sets of participants are created who are
essentially the same on the matching variable.

Smith/Davis (c) 2005

The Multiple-Group Design

Correlated

samples

Repeated measures
Each

participant must participate in all of the

treatment conditions.

Natural sets
Analogous

to using natural pairs except that sets

must include more than two research participants.
Many animal researchers use littermates as natural
sets.

Smith/Davis (c) 2005

Deciding on an Experimental
Design
Researchers

who want to design an

experiment with one IV also need to choose
between multiple-group designs and the twogroup designs.

Smith/Davis (c) 2005

Comparing Multiple-Group and

Two-Group Designs
All

you have to do to change your two-group

design into a multiple-group design is to add
another level (or more) to your IV.
A two-group design can tell you whether your
IV has an effect.

Smith/Davis (c) 2005

Comparing Multiple-Group and TwoGroup Designs

A two-group design can tell you whether your IV has

an effect.

You should never conduct an experiment to determine

whether a particular IV has an effect without first conducting
a thorough literature search
If you find no answer in a library search, then you should
consider conducting a two-group (presence vs. absence)
study.

A multiple-group design is appropriate when you find

the answer to your basic question and wish to go
further.
Smith/Davis (c) 2005

Comparing Multiple-Group Designs

Choosing

a multiple-group design

Your first consideration should be your

experimental question.
Then decide on whether to use
independent or correlated groups.

Smith/Davis (c) 2005

Comparing Multiple-Group Designs

Control issues

The multiple-independent groups design uses the

control technique of randomly assigning
participants to groups.
If

you have a substantial number of research participants

(at least 10 per group), you can be fairly confident that
random assignment will create equal groups.

Multiple-correlated groups designs use the control

techniques of matching, repeated measures, or
natural pairs to assure equality of groups and to
reduce error variability.

Smith/Davis (c) 2005

Comparing Multiple-Group Designs

Remember the general equation that represents the

formula for a statistical test

Reducing the error variability in the denominator of the

equation will result in a larger computed statistical value,
thereby making it easier to reject the Null hypothesis.
Using a correlated groups design reduces your degrees of
freedom, which makes it more difficult to achieve statistical
significance and reject the Null.
However, the reduced error variability typically more than
offsets the loss of df. Thus, correlated designs often
produce stronger tests for finding statistical
significance.
Smith/Davis
(c) 2005

Comparing Multiple-Group Designs

Practical considerations

Correlated-Groups Designs

Matched sets

Natural sets

May be limited by the size of the natural sets you intend to study.

Repeated measures

You must consider the difficulty of finding three (or more)

participants to match on the extraneous variable you choose.

Each participant must be measured at least three times.

Independent groups Designs

You must take into account the large number of participants

you will need to make random assignment feasible and to fill
the multiple groups.

Smith/Davis (c) 2005

Variations on the Multiple-Group

Design
Comparing

If we already know that a particular IV has an

effect, then we can use a multiple-group design to
help us define the limits of that effect.
In this type of experiment, we often add an
important control in order to account for a possible
placebo effect.

Placebo

different amounts of an IV

effect

An experimental effect that is due to expectation

or suggestion rather than the IV.
Smith/Davis (c) 2005

Variations on the Multiple-Group

Design
Dealing

with measured IVs

Ex post facto research deals with measured

rather than manipulated IVs.

Smith/Davis (c) 2005