Question

Dr. Wohn is interested in the effects of a trust-building game (i.e. a ropes course) on the social adjustment of incoming first-year students. She goes back to records of Freshman Orientation weekend and finds 50 students who chose to do the trust-building exercise and 50 students who chose to do another activity instead (i.e. a non-trust building game). She administers a survey and finds that, on average, the students who did the trust-building game reported better social adjustment than those who did not. Dr. Wohn concludes that the trust-building exercise caused better social adjustment for those students. What is wrong with her conclusion

Answer 1

- Students self-selected which activity to do, so causality cannot be inferred from the results.

Step-by-step explanation:

Dr. Wohn's conclusion would not be relevant because the students themselves selected the activity according to their will and thus, the actual influence cannot be determined by the outcome. This affects the authenticity, credibility, and efficacy of the conclusion and makes it irrelevant. In order to make a worthy and reliable conclusion, the students must have been selected randomly and then assigned to play or not play the game so that actual effects can be observed.