Ideally, What Should an Experiment Studying the Effect of a Cold

Question

Ideally, what should an experiment studying the effect of a cold medicine have?
A) no control group
B) double-blind procedures
C) a small sample size
D) subjects of only one gender

Accepted Answer

Double-blind procedures are necessary to ensure that neither the experimenter nor the subjects know who is receiving the actual medicine or a placebo. This eliminates bias and increases the validity of the study. The other options are not ideal as a control group is necessary in order to compare the effect of the medicine, a small sample size may not be representative of the population, and subjects of only one gender may limit generalization to the larger population.