What is the reasoning behind the randomized block design? What ...

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What is the reasoning behind the randomized block design?
 
  What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

An experimental psychologist wants to study the effects of depth of processing controlling for the effects of other study strategies that the participants might use spontaneously if they know they are going to be tested on their memory. To do this, the experimenter tells the participants that they are going to be participating in a reaction time test to see how quickly they can make different kinds of judgments about each of a series of words that will be presented to them, and they are not told that they will be tested for memory of the words. These instructions to the subjects are called
 
  a. a pilot test.
  b. an orienting task.
  c. intentional learning instructions.
  d. priming.

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Answer to Question 1

Like stratified sampling, randomized block designs are constructed to reduce noise or variance in the data. They require you to divide the sample into relatively homogeneous subgroups or blocks (analogous to strata in stratified sampling). Then, the experimental design you want to apply is implemented within each block or homogeneous subgroup. The key idea is that the variability within each block is less than the variability of the entire sample. As a result, each estimate of the treatment effect within a block is more efficient than estimates across the entire sample. When you pool these more efficient estimates across blocks, you should get a more efficient estimate overall than you would without blocking.

Answer to Question 2

B

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Excellent

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