A scientist simulates chance outcomes by randomly re-sorting treatment groups one hundred times and constructing a distribution of the response variable means for each treatment group. What can the scientist predict about the means of the treatment group distributions?(1 point)

Question

Responses

The means of the treatment group distributions will be exactly the same.
The means of the treatment group distributions will be exactly the same.

The means of the treatment group distributions will be very close to each other and close to the mean of the entire population.
The means of the treatment group distributions will be very close to each other and close to the mean of the entire population.

The means of the treatment group distributions will be very different.
The means of the treatment group distributions will be very different.

The means of the treatment group distributions will be very different from the response variable mean of the entire population.

Answer 1

The correct response is:

The means of the treatment group distributions will be very close to each other and close to the mean of the entire population.

This is because, through random re-sorting and simulation, the scientist is effectively creating a null distribution based on chance alone. As a result, the means of the treatment groups generated will tend to cluster around the population mean, assuming there are no actual treatment effects.