What are the characteristics of a 2 x 2 experimental design?

Answer 1

A 2 x 2 experimental design involves manipulating 2 factors that you are interested in, with 2 levels of each variable. For example, you may want to see the effects of both level of caffeine (factor 1) and difficulty of test (factor 2) on test performance. Thus, for factor 1 - caffeine level, you may have high amount of caffeine (factor 1 level 1), and low amount of caffeine (factor 1 level 2). For factor 2 - difficulty of test, you may have a difficult test (factor 2 level 1), and an easy test (factor 2 level 2). Then you randomly assign individuals to one of the four conditions in your experiment. In this example case the conditions would be: 1. Low caffeine, difficult test 2. High caffeine, difficult test 3. Low caffeine, easy test 4. High caffeine, easy test Then, to analyze your data, you would conduct a factorial ANOVA using SPSS or by hand if you so desire.