EXPERIMENTAL DESIGNS

Ø  Independent groups: the available people for the experiment are divided into two groups. One group takes part in one of the conditions of the experiment and the other group takes part in the remaining condition. In the ‘music study’ experiment, one group of participants would learn with music present and the other group would learn without music present.

Ø  Repeated measures: there is one group of participants. The participants would take part in both conditions of the experiment. In the ‘music study’ experiment all participants would learn some material with music and they would also learn some material without music.

Ø  Matched pairs: the available people are tested before taking part and are matched for qualities into pairs. They could be identified at pair Aa, pair Bb, and so on. One member of the pair takes part in one condition of the experiment (A, B, C, etc) and the other member takes part in te remaining condition (a, b, c, etc). Identical twins are often considered to be perfect matched pairs in psychology research.