Activity 13.2:

Designing an Experiment

Fizz Laboratories, a pharmaceutical company, has developed a new pain-relief medication. Sixty patients suffering from arthritis and needing pain relief are available. Each patient will be treated and then asked an hour later, "About what percentage of pain relief did you experience?" Work with another student to prepare answers to each of the following questions or tasks.

1.Why should Fizz not simply administer the new drug and record the patient's responses?

2.Draw the design below of an experiment to compare the drug's effectiveness with that of aspirin and a placebo.

3.Should patients be told which group they are in? How would knowledge probably affect their reactions?

4.If patients are not told which treatment they are receiving, the experiment is single-blind. Should this experiment also be double-blind? Explain.