Notes on designing an experiment
Waking Example
A psychology course has the 21 students shown below. The professor
wants to use the students to test two new types of pill for
keeping people awake, called Wakey-Wakey and Zizzaway. He has
only six pills of Wakey-Wakey and five pills of Zizzaway.
He plans to use 11 students. Each student will be shut alone in
the observation room, swallow their allocated pill, and then follow a set
programme of activities until they fall asleep. A hidden watcher will record
when they swallow the pill and when they fall asleep.
Design the experiment for the professor, to the extent of giving him a plan
allocating pills to students.
| Name | Sex | Age |
|---|
| Adrian | M | 19 |
| Belinda | F | 20 |
| Caroline | F | 19 |
| David | M | 20 |
| Esther | F | 28 |
| Fiona | F | 20 |
| Gregory | M | 19 |
| Helen | F | 20 |
| Ingrid | F | 20 |
| James | M | 20 |
| Katherine | F | 19 |
| Linda | F | 28 |
| Michael | M | 20 |
| Naomi | F | 19 |
| Olivia | F | 20 |
| Peter | M | 20 |
| Quentin | M | 27 |
| Ruth | F | 20 |
| Sarah | F | 19 |
| Trixie | F | 20 |
| Ursula | F | 20 |
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R. A. Bailey
Page updated 17/11/01