Question

Doug A. Hole recruits 3 students for a study on methods to improve student success in social studies. The curriculum covers the modern history of Central America and involves a lot of Spanish vocabulary. Of the 4 students recruited, one participant's family is from Nicaragua and speaks Spanish in the home. The child has visited Nicaragua on multiple occasions prior to the study. The pattern of this student's performance varies greatly from her peers in baseline and intervention resulting in a failure to replicate. The threat to internal validity her most closely resembles:

Answer 1

The threat to internal validity in this scenario most closely resembles history.

Step-by-step explanation:

The threat to internal validity that this situation most closely resembles is history.

In the given scenario, the student whose family is from Nicaragua and who speaks Spanish at home has a unique background and experience with the subject matter, Central American history, and Spanish vocabulary.

This could result in a significant difference in their performance compared to their peers in both the baseline and intervention phases of the study.

This threatens internal validity because their specific characteristics are a confounding variable that may be responsible for the observed differences, rather than the intervention being studied.

It is important to consider and control for confounding variables in research studies to ensure that the observed effects are truly a result of the intervention being evaluated.