Cell Phones While Driving Research

Research Methods

There are so many things in life that we take for granted in our every day life. Have you ever though of how many of them needed to be tested to prove their safety? But then again, how many things have not been tested? One of which has become a big controversy in our society is the use of cell phones while operating a vehicle. This essay will focus specifically on talking on a cell phone while driving and how to safely and accurately get results. We will look at why it is important to have a control group during the experiment, how the subjects should be assigned, and the ways that we can make the only difference in the experiment is the use of a cell phone.

So, why is it important to have a control group? A control group is a group that has not been exposed to any of the factors you are testing. In this case, the control group would not have or be under any influence of cell phones. By having a control group, we are able to compare the groups with the control being the steady baseline. The cell phones would influence the other groups used while they were driving. This is a very important factor because without it, we would not have results to falsify or prove our hypothesis.

Next, how should the subjects be assigned?

There are many different ways to assign subjects in one group or another. But controlling biases are very important in order to get the most accurate result. The best way to assign people to the experiment groups is through the process of random assignment or random placement. In this way, all the participants each have and equal chance to each group, whether it is a control group or a group with

variables.

As you might expect, it is quite hard to regulate traffic so you get the results you might be looking for. Honestly, there is probably no perfect environment to test any theory, but could we be close? If we were to design course that had only our experiment participant driving, would that be better? In truth, it could help keep the results somewhat regulated. By creating our own course, it allows the trials to be more controlled. And with that, we could add different and constant obstacles on the course to test the hypothesis in or at different levels of difficulty. In some cases, you might use the same vehicle, or different vehicles depending on the amount of results you are looking to compare.

For my “ideal testing center”, like said earlier, I would have a specific laid out course for participants to drive on. I would get participants from there own willingness and have them split into the groups by a random selection. The control group would be tested first and then the other group talking on the phone. If it was wanted, we could continue to add more variables to test different environments.

There are many different ways that we can test a hypothesis, but this is just one way of testing. We have seen the importance of a control group to make comparisons. We have also found that there are many different ways that a subject can be split into groups. And finally, broken down the ways to keep the variables controlled so we have a more accurate test reading. These examples can be used in all types of experiments, but all can vary as well. So next time you have an experiment, make sure you look at all the variables.