Cheryl Willard - Lee College

Practice #9:
Simulated Experiment
For this activity, an experiment is simulated in the classroom. I ask for a volunteer who
is willing to balance a bottle on the forefinger of both their right and left hands and to spell
words at the same time. I ask the volunteer to step out of the room while I state the hypothesis
that “Balancing durations will shorten more in the right hand than the left with the introduction
of a verbal task.”
In this type of research design, the subject serves as his/her own control. There is first a
silent condition when the student just balances the bottle without spelling words. The student is
timed and baseline balancing durations are established and recorded for both the right and left
hands, one hand at a time. The student then balances the bottle again, separately, in both the
right and left hands while words are pronounced for her/him to spell. The entire sequence is then
repeated again.
While I average the scores and calculate differences to determine whether or not the
hypothesis was confirmed, the students respond independently in writing to the following
questions:
• Why does the hypothesis make sense? [At this point, we have talked about both
research methods and structures and functions of the brain, including cross laterality
(the fact that the left hemisphere of the brain controls the right side of the body and
the right hemisphere controls the left side of the body), and the language centers
being located in the left hemisphere. When the volunteer is spelling words and
balancing at the same time in his/her left hand, the right hemisphere is simply doing
the balancing. However, when the volunteer is spelling words and balancing at the
same time in his/her right hand, the left hemisphere is both balancing and has the
added burden of the verbal task, creating greater neural interference with balancing in
the right hand].
• What was the independent variable? [The verbal task]
• What was the dependent variable? [Balancing durations]
• If this were an actual experiment, what extraneous variables would have to be
controlled? [There are many, some of which include: sample size, noise and other
distractions, and difficulty level of the words]
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