The English - French Connection Experiment A French psychologist, M. Ory, is interested in the relationship between how one studies the material to be learned and one's memory for that material a month or more later (one's long-term memory). The options he considers for how the material is studied are either (1) all at one time (called the massed study technique, M), or (2) to break up the study periods (called the distributed study technique, D). He designs an experiment in which college students are presented 20 names of occupations (e.g., lawyer) and are asked to learn the associated French words (e.g., l'avocat). In each case the participants are given a final test (T) in week 12 of the investigation. It tests the material by giving the English words and asking for the French equivalent of each. In the Massed study condition (M) of the experiment, all of the material (that is, all 20 items) are studied during one 90-minute session and tested for how well they have learned them at the end of that session. The professor decides to have two different distributed study conditions. In the D2 condition he has students study the items in a 45- minute session and tests them on those items at the end of that session; and then two weeks later he has them re-study the items (also for 45 minutes), and tests them again. In the D3 condition he has the students study the items (for 30 minutes) and tests them over those items in one session; and he does the same in a second session two weeks later (also for 30 minutes); and then again, two weeks after that, for another 30 minutes he has them study the items a third time and tests them. As noted above, the long-term memory for all three groups, M, D2, and D3 is tested (T) in Week 12 to see if their memories differ depending upon which group they were in. Also, when the experiment was conducted Prof. M. Ory asked the participants about their preferred way to study. Though the terms "massed" and "distributed" were not used by him, each participant was asked if he or she preferred to study in what amounted to the massed (M) or the distributed (D2 or D3) way. They were then assigned to their preferred way to study (that is, to the experimental group that best fit their previous study habits) in order to make them most comfortable with the procedure. Shown below are two different ways in which M. Ory might have designed the study described above. DESIGN A Week 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Group M === I II III D3 22 D2 D3 ME D2 D3 DESIGN B Week 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Group I II III MBR D2 D3 22 D2 D3 D3 10 11 12 T T T 777 777 T T T Based on the study summary above, please answer the following questions. Each question is worth 2 points (the assignment is worth a total of 10 points): 1. What is the research question? 2. What is/are the independent variable(s)? 3. What is/are the dependent variable(s)? 4. One of these designs has a serious confound. Which one, and what is that confound? 5. Both designs share another serious problem. What is it?