3.26 A pediatric surgeon has known from experience that children undergoing any planned surgeries tend to suffer from surgery jitters. Typically, children are given some sedatives or anti-anxiety drugs to calm them down. But this surgeon interested in some new ways to make surgery less frightening noticed how a friend’s child became immersed with his Game Boy. The surgeon is interested in testing his theory that children often forget their fears of surgery as they play the games. Anxiety is measured using the Yale Preoperative Anxiety Scale on a scale of 0–100.

a Design an experiment to test this surgeon’s theory that anxiety level can be lowered by allowing children to play with Game Boys before surgery.

b Design an experiment to compare the effects of using anti-anxiety drugs and allowing use of Game Boy on anxiety level before surgery.

c Discuss how the conclusions from the two experiments described in parts

(a) and

(b) will differ.