What is the purpose of the “what do you think was the purpose of this study” question on the end of experiments?
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A lot of experiments, especially of the social/psychological variety, rely on the respondents not really knowing what the angle is. If people know what the researchers are hoping to prove/disprove they may alter their behavior.
If you’re conducting a study like that and a bunch of the people have correctly guessed what you’re doing, you may have a problem with the data and/or methodology.
In many scientific surveys you don‘t want that the people doing the surveys knowing the exact purpose on what is being tested. If they do know, they will probably give biased answers which will often prevent to make a conclusion regarding a broader part of the population you‘re aiming for. So it basically is the experimenter asking „do you know to much?“ and if so they can sort you out if your given answers already seem biased.
To see what kind of bias you had during the study. If you knew the point of the study you may have behaved in a certain way in expectation of that. If you still had no clue at the end, your results might be weighed differently.
To see if your answer is biased. Some people may of taken a similar test and were shown their underlying motives. Once exposed, people tend to answer the opposite of what they feel/see and skew the data.
An example, there is an optical illusion that makes one line look bigger than the other. Most people would say that one line is bigger than the other UNLESS you know the purpose of the study, so you answer the opposite and skew the data.
There are plenty of other examples, look up the blue dot affect, or plenty of other psychological effects. Basically it’s to make sure you arent a biased outlier.
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