20 Time Update #3 on Placebo Experiment

During the past few weeks, I have come across a few setbacks. One being that I realized I needed to come up with a placebo experiment that does not involve pills, as I am not allowed to give pills to students. So after some research, I came up with an experiment that was pill free. My idea is to gather a group of 10-20 students and split them up into 2 groups. I will then take the first group in and tell them that I am giving them a very easy test, that everyone has passed so far. This gives them the impression and the confidence that they can do well on the (general knowledge) test. Then I will take the next group in and tell them the opposite, that the test is extremely hard and to just try their best, giving them the impression that they will not do well. Then I will collect the data and see if me giving the group a placebo (confidence boost) helped them.

The second setback is that I need to find people to participate in my experiment. If I used my friends as test subjects, they may not take the experiment seriously, and my data may be altered because of that. A solution to my problem would be to either create a facebook poll to see if people would like to participate, or ask my classmates if they would like to. I hope to start my experiment in the next week or so. Now I definitely have a much better understanding of how the placebo effect can take place not just with pills but also without. I have made a lot of progress in my project and will continue to.