Three minutes example of within-subject design, applied research, and ecological validity. Also, you could use it as an excuse to play German club music before class?

Okay. I know there are so many COVID examples out there, but this one is maybe a tiny bit amusing (it involves Berlin dance clubs). It also demonstrates a within-subject research design and ecological validity. It is also a very tiny example that is easy to understand and doesn't require students to understand any psychological theories. Yes, many of you are psychologists teaching statistics, but I think it is vital that we use various examples to ensure that at least one of them will stick for every student.

Emma Hurt/NPR

Anyway. Berlin has a famous dance club culture, which has been under tremendous financial strain due to COVID-19.

Since winter is coming and outdoor options will no longer be possible, the government has sponsored a pilot project to study whether or not clubs can be opened safely if everyone at the club has tested negative for COVID-19. NPR reported on this applied, within-subject design study (a three-minute-long news story you could use in class):

In addition to demonstrating a within-subject, pre-post research design, this is also a good example of ecological validity. God bless the well-intended researchers who thought about replicating a dance club in a university-sponsored research lab. To truly capture how the virus may transmit, they needed to take the research to da club.

For more information on the pilot project, here is a press release from the government. The City of Berlin is paying for this research study because the club district is such a big source of revenue for the city, AND the city has been using tax dollars to keep the clubs afloat during COVID.

UPDATE: ~70% of the participants showed up for the 2nd PCR test, and no new cases of COVID were discovered in that group.