New Game App (Research 2023)

Mobile Gamer Central (MGC) is preparing to launch a new game app. The advertisements for this new game are brightly colored, have lively music, and feature celebrities playing the game. To generate interest in the game, MGC pays to have these advertisements pop up multiple times while people are using other apps on their phone. The marketing director is pleased with the advertising campaign and thinks the game is really fun to play.

After a few weeks with moderate success, MGC’s marketing director decides to test the most effective ways to increase sales of the game. Marketing researchers recruit 100 people to play the new game. They randomly assign half of the people to observe someone demonstrating how the game is played and assign the other half of the people to play the video game themselves. Participants rate how likely they are to buy the game on a scale of 1 (not likely) through 10 (very likely). Results are presented in the table.

Identify the operational definition of the dependent variable in the study.

Explain what the difference between the standard deviations in the study indicates.

Explain why random assignment is necessary for determining cause and effect in this study. 

Explain what the p-value allows MGC to conclude about the study.