1 November 2021

1. Objectives

In this activity, you will be designing a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to answer a research question. Please do so in your groups (or smaller subunits).

The objectives are:

  • To have you experience the thought process involved in planning an experiment to answer a specific question.

  • To consider the principles and practices of a good experimental design.

2. What you need to do

You will have about 20 minutes to design your RCT. Please download the handout 'Activity1_DesignRCT_student.docx' from Canvas. Then complete the handout. It will guide you through the planning process.

Here is your question: Does sleep deprivation affect the ability to remember things over a brief interval (e.g. on the order of minutes)?

3. Takeaway points 1

Good practices in experimental design include:

  • Clearly defining what to manipulate (the “factor” in the textbook; in an RCT, the factor is the key difference between the control and study groups)

  • Clearly defining what to measure (response variable)

  • Randomly assigning participants to groups (in most cases)

  • Setting up appropriate controls and handling confounds

4. Takeaway points 2

We cannot control everything. In particular:

  • There are variables that we cannot control such as individual differences among participants.

  • We cannot eliminate all biases, either practically or ethically. For example, could participants be unaware of whether they were in the sleep deprivation group or the control group?