“I can’t get through my day without coffee” is a common statement from many college students. They assume that the benefits of coffee include staying awake during lectures and remaining more alert during exams and tests. Students in a statistics class designed an experiment to measure memory retention with and without drinking a cup of coffee 1 hour before a test. This experiment took place on two different days in the same week (Monday and Wednesday). Ten students were used. Each student received no coffee or one cup of coffee 1 hour before the test on a particular day. The test consisted of a series of words flashed on a screen, after which the student had to write down as many of the words as possible. On the other day, each student received a different amount of coffee (none or one cup).
a. One of the researchers suggested that all the subjects in the experiment drink no coffee before Monday’s test and one cup of coffee before Wednesday’s test. Explain to the researcher why this is a bad idea and suggest a better method of deciding when each subject receives the two treatments.
b. The researchers actually used the better method of deciding when each subject receives the two treatments that you identified in part (a). For each subject, the number of words recalled when drinking no coffee and when drinking one cup of coffee is recorded in the table. Carry out an appropriate test to determine whether there is convincing evidence that drinking coffee improves memory, on average, for students like the ones in this study.
