Question

The SAT exam is used in admissions decisions by many four-year colleges and universities. In 2006, The College Board carried out a study of 6,498 SAT essays that were selected at random from the more than 1.4 million SAT exams taken in the 2005 - 2006 academic year. For this sample of essays, 15% were written in cursive and 85% were printed in block letters. The results showed that the average score for essays written in cursive was higher than the average score for essays that were printed.

A. is this study an observational study or an experiment? Explain your answer.
B. is it reasonable to conclude that writing the essay in cursive was the cause of the higher scores? Explain your answer?

Answer 1

Explanation:

A. This study is an observation study as there is manipulative to the data on the part of the researcher. They only collected information based on what was seen and observed. There were no treatment conditions.

B. It is not reasonable to conclude that writing the essay in cursive is the cause for higher scores as the causation factor inducing higher scores here in this case might not be on how the essays are put down. So an experiment will be needed to be carried out to find this out.