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42 CHAPTER 2 Experimental research

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. What is descriptive research?
2. What is relational research?
3. What is experimental research?
4. What is randomization in experimental research? Discuss several examples of
randomization methods.
5. What is a research hypothesis? What are the characteristics of a good research
hypothesis?
6. What is a dependent variable?
7. What is an independent variable?
8. What is a significance test? Why do we need to run significance tests?

9. What is a Type I error? What is a Type II error?
10. Discuss the practical implications of Type I errors and Type II errors.

RESEARCH DESIGN EXERCISES

1. A research team is investigating three possible navigation architectures for an
e-commerce website. Thirty participants are recruited to test the website, with 10
participants testing each architecture. How should the participants be assigned to
the three conditions?
2. Read the following hypotheses and identify the dependent variables and
independent variables in each hypothesis.
1. There is no difference in users' reading speed and retention rate when they
view news on a desktop computer or a PDA.
2. There is no difference in the target selection speed and error rate between
joystick, touch screen, and gesture recognition.

3. There is no difference in the technology adoption rate between two speech-
based applications with different dialog designs.
4. There is no difference in the reading skills of children who used
educational software for 6 months compared to those who have never used
the software.