Chapter 12: Designing, Conducting, Analyzing,

and Interpreting
Experiments with Multiple Independent Variables

Shuhebur Rahman
M.S
Iowa State University
 Experimental Design:
Doubling the Basic Building Block

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 Experimental Design: Doubling the
Basic Building Block
• A factorial design gives us the power we need to devise an
investigation of several factors (IVs) in a single
experiment.

Simplest Possible Factorial Design (2x2)

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• Chapter 10: Two group design
• 11: Multi-Group Design
• 12: Factorial Design
 Experimental Design: Doubling the
Basic Building Block
• Factors
– Synonymous with IVs
• Independent variables (IVs)
– Stimuli or aspects of the environment that are directly
manipulated by the experimenter to determine their influences
on behavior.

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Experimental Design: Doubling the Basic
Building Block
• Factorial designs are the lifeblood of experimental
psychology because they allow us to look at combinations
of IVs at the same time, a situation that is quite similar to
the real world.
– A factorial design is more like the real world because there are
probably few, if any, situations in which your behavior is affected
by only a single factor at a time.

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 How Many Groups or Levels?
• The simplest possible factorial design is known as a 2 X 2
design.
– This 2 X 2 shorthand notation tells us that we are dealing with a design
that has two factors (IV’s) because there are two digits given and that
each of the two factors has two levels because each digit shown is a
two.
– The number of numbers tells us how many IV’s there are.
– The value of each number tells us how many levels each IV has.

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• 4x3x4
• Number of numbers= How many IV
• Each number represents the level of THAT IV
So 1st IV has 4 levels
2nd IV has 3 levels
3rd IV has 4 levels
And we read this as “4 by 3 by 4 factorial design”
The product (mathematically) is the number of
GROUPS
2 x 2 Design
 Factorial Design
• Main effect
– A main effect refers to the sole effect of one IV in a factorial design.
Not dependent on the other IV.
• Interaction
– Joint simultaneous effect on the DV of more than one IV.

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2 x 2 Design: Investigating Interactions

Interaction of psychotherapy and drug treatment on therapeutic effectiveness

 Understanding Interactions
• When two variables interact, their joint effect may not be
obvious or predictable from examining their separate effects.
– For example, drinking a glass of wine may be a pleasurable and
relaxing experience and driving may be a pleasurable and relaxing
experience but is drinking wine and driving an extremely pleasurable
and relaxing experience?
• Combinations of drugs, in particular, are likely to have synergistic
effects so that a joint effect occurs that is not predictable from
either drug alone.
– The effects are greater than what is individually possible.

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 Understanding Interactions
• A significant interaction means that the effects of the various
IV’s are not straightforward and simple.
• For this reason, when we find a significant interaction, we
may want to focus on the interaction over the main effects of
each of IV.
• Sometimes interactions are difficult to interpret, particularly
when we have more than two IV’s or many levels of an IV.

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 Understanding Interactions
• A strategy that often helps us to make sense of an interaction
is to graph it.
• By graphing your DV on the y axis and one IV on the x axis,
you can depict your other IV with lines on the graph (see
Chapter 9).
• By studying such as graph, you can usually deduce what
happened to cause a significant interaction.

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 Understanding Interactions
• When you graph a significant interaction, you will often notice
that the lines of the graph cross or converge.
• This pattern is a visual indication that the effects of one IV
change as the second IV is varied.
• Non-significant interactions typically show lines that are close
to parallel.
• Remember: an interaction is present when the effects of one
IV depends on the specific level of the other IV

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 Experimental Design:
Doubling the Basic Building Block

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 Factorial Designs:
Assigning Participants to Groups

• We have two options for this assignment – independent

groups or correlated groups.
• However, this question is not answered in such a simple
manner as in the two-group and multiple-group designs, each
of which had only one IV.
• All IV’s could have participants assigned
randomly or in a correlated fashion, or we
could have one IV with independent groups
and one IV with correlated groups. This
possibility is referred to as mixed assignment.
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 Factorial Designs:
Assigning Participants to Groups

• Random assignment
– Factorial designs in which both IV’s involve
random assignment may be called between-
subjects factorial designs

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Factorial Design: Nonrandom Assignment to
Groups
• Factorial designs in which participant groups for all IV’s have
been formed through nonrandom assignment are called
completely within-groups (or within-subjects) designs.
• We may want to resort to nonrandom assignment in order to
assure the equality of participant groups before we conduct
the experiment.

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 Nonrandom Assignment to Groups
• Repeated Measures.
– In a completely within-groups experiment using repeated measures,
participants would take part fully and completely.
• Participants take part in every possible treatment combination.
• The smaller the design, the more feasible it is to include all participants in
all conditions of the experiment.

• Matched Pairs or Sets.

– The more levels an IV has, the more work matching for that variable
takes.
– The more precise the match that is necessary, the more difficult
matching becomes.

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 Factorial Design: Mixed Design

• Mixed Assignment to Groups.

– Mixed assignment designs involve a combination of random and
nonrandom assignment, with at least one IV using each type of
assignment to groups.
• In a two-IV factorial design, mixed assignment involves one IV with
random assignment and one IV with nonrandom assignment.
• In such designs, the use of repeated measures is probably more likely than
other types of nonrandom assignment.
– Mixed designs combine the advantages of the two types of designs.

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Characteristics of Research Design
 Comparing the Factorial Design to Two-Group
and Multiple-Group Designs
• The multiple-group design may be used to conduct more in-depth
investigations of an IV that interests us.
• We took the basic two-group design and extended it to include
more levels of our IV.
• We can make the same type of extension with factorial designs.
• Just as with the multiple-group design, there is no limit to the
number of levels for any IV in a factorial design.
– The number of levels of the IV’s can be equal or unequal.
• Interaction effects must be interpreted in factorial designs but not
in two-group or multiple-group designs.

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 Variations on Factorial Designs
• Comparing Different Amounts of an IV.
– When you add a level to an IV in a factorial design, you add several
groups to your experiment because each new level must be added
under each level of your other independent variable(s).
• For example, expanding a 2 X 2 to a 3 X 2 design requires 6 groups rather
than 4.
• Adding levels in a factorial design increases groups in a multiplicative
fashion.

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• Factor A: School: Private or Public
• Factor B: Boro: Q, BK, BX
• Factor C: Gender: Boy/Girl
• 2x3x2= 12 Groups
• DV: Future INCOME
• Analysis
• 1: School: Private vs Public- T Test
• 2: Boro: Q vs BK vs Bx- 1-Way ANOVA
• 3: Gender: Boys vs Girls- T Test

• 4: Schools + Boro: 2-Way ANOVA

• 5: School + Gender: 2-Way ANOVA
• 6: Boro + Gender: 2-Way ANOVA

• 7: School+Boro+Gender: 3-way ANOVA

 Eric Jacob Mia
• Eric is a bad kid • Eric and Jacob are bad
• Jacob is a good kid • Eric and Mia are worse
• Mia is a good kid • Jacob and Mia are good

• Eric Jacob and Mia are

great
 Using Participant IVs
• Using a measured rather than a manipulated IV results in ex
post facto research.
– A research approach in which the experimenter cannot directly
manipulate the IV but can only classify, categorize, or measure the
IV because it is predetermined in the participants (e.g., IV = sex).
• Without the control that comes from directly causing an IV to vary, we
must exercise extreme caution in drawing conclusions from such
studies.
• We can develop an experiment that uses one manipulated IV and one
measured IV at the same time.

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 Dealing with More than Two IVs
• Designing an experiment with more than two IVs is probably
the most important variation of the factorial design.
• The simplest possible factorial design with three IV’s (often
referred to as a three-way design) has three IV’s, each with
two levels.
– This design represents a 2 X 2 X 2 experiment.
– This design would require eight different groups if it is planned as a
completely between-groups design.

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Dealing with More than Two IVs

Simplest Possible Three-Way Factorial Design

(2x2x2)
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 Statistical Analysis: What Do Your Data
Show?
• Naming Factorial Designs
– Labels you may hear that reflect the size of the design include:
• Factorial ANOVA
• Two-way ANOVA
• Three-way ANOVA

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 Interpretation: Making Sense of Your
Statistics
• Our statistical analyses of factorial designs will provide us
more information than we got from two-group or
multiple-group designs.
• The analyses are not necessarily more complicated than
those we saw in Chapters 10 and 11, but they do provide
more information because we have multiple IV’s and
interaction effects to analyze.
• We interpret a 2-way ANOVA by understanding the
relationship between the main effects (or lack of) with the
interaction (or lack of).

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