Dr. Reyes is a researcher in psychology looking to study the effects of a new pill he has developed on student test anxiety. Dr. Reyes is unsure whether his new pill will increase or reduce test anxiety. Dr. Reyes called for volunteers from the local community college, advertising that he required participants for a "study on anxiety." After gathering over 200 participants, Dr. Reyes needed to determine which of his volunteers were the most anxious during a test. To determine this he pretended to be a student, sitting in the back of a large lecture hall while the students were taking a Midterm and observing how his volunteers responded to the stressful situation. Those that showed visible signs of test anxiety were given priority for selection as participants. When selecting participants, Dr. Reyes noticed that Nursing students, whom had the most amount of homework of all volunteers, seemed to have more anxiety during Midterms than his other volunteers.
Dr. Reyes divided his participants into two groups: one group would receive the new pill that he had developed for test anxiety, the other would receive a sugar pill. Participants were not told which group they belonged to, but Dr. Reyes maintained careful records to keep track of what pill he had given each participant. After taking their pills, participants were encouraged to continue taking them for the rest of the semester. After Finals, participants were surveyed about their overall level of anxiety and were finally told if they received the actual Anxiety Pill or the sugar pill in the experiment. Dr. Reyes found that his pill seemed to reduce student test anxiety. His research was published in a very prominent Psychology Journal, and many other researchers in psychology were excited to replicate his experiment.
Dr. Reyes conducting his study is which step in the Scientific Method?
O Form a Hypothesis
O Research
O Publish
O Replication
