Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Cognitive Performance - Experimental Design

A researcher is interested in examining the effects of sleep deprivation on cognitive performance. They design a study in which 100 college students are randomly assigned to one of two groups: one group is allowed to sleep for 8 hours the night before a series of cognitive tests, while the other group is restricted to 4 hours of sleep.

After the test, the researcher measures participants’ performance on tasks that assess memory, attention, and problem-solving skills. Discuss how the researcher can control for confounding variables in this experiment, how they would implement random assignment, and how they could ensure the reliability and validity of their measures. Additionally, identify one potential ethical concern related to this study and propose a solution.