Between vs. Within-subjects Designs

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In simplest terms, an experiment that uses only between-subjects factors is said to use a between-subjects design, and an experiment that uses only within-subjects factors is called a within-subjects design. The fundamental hallmark of a between-subjects design is that each participant is assigned to one and only one level of each factor. For instance, participants might be randomly assigned to either receive negative feedback or positive feedback. Feedback is the independent variable, and it has two levels: positive or negative. It is a between-subjects design because each participant only receives one type of feedback. There are two (2) independent groups of participants in the study: one group receives positive feedback and the other group receives negative feedback (Charness, Gneezy, & Kuhn, 2012). In a between-subjects design, the typical approach to statistical analysis is to compare the means of the different levels of the between-subjects factors. Using the above explanation, an experimenter might measure each participant’s self esteem, for example, after he/she has received feedback. The mean self-esteem score for the positive feedback group would than be compared to the mean self-esteem score for the negative feedback group (Thompson & Campbell, 2004). The experimenter’s goal, in this example, would be to explain as much of the variance as possible between the two means: positive and negative. The variance that can be explained is the variance due to being in the positive versus the negative feedback condition. The variance can be explained because you have an independent variable; in this experiment, it would be the feedback condition. However, the experimenter could not explain why one participant in the...

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