A researcher is carrying out a study of the effects of teaching different approaches to argumentation on writing persuasive essays. He pretests the participants by having them write three persuasive essays prior to the study, and three essays after the study. He has two individuals grade all the essays. The two individuals were given no training prior to the study. The essays from the students in the study actually looked worse rather than better after the study. Based on the information presented above, what threat to internal validity could explain the contradictory finding?

a. Selection
b. Maturation effect
c. Instrumentation
d. History effect


Ans: c

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Technological aids for people with visual impairments generally

a. make use of extra environmental cues. b. augment other senses (usually hearing) to compensate. c. conserve whatever residual sight is left. d. fabricate alternative methods for sight and perception.

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To select the most discriminating items for a Likert-type attitude scale, one would administer the items to a pilot group and then calculate the correlations between

a. item scores and total scores. b. scores on the odd and even items. c. scores on the positively stated and the negatively stated items. d. scores on the scale and scores on criterion measuring the same attitudes.

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Indicate whether the statement is true(T) or false(F).

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Which mixed methods design generates qualitative information that is followed by a quantitative investigation?

a) Exploratory sequential b) Explanatory sequential c) Triangulation d) Multi-trait combined

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