Noelle, a psychologist, hypothesizes that male high school students experience increased self-esteem if they receive excellent grades in math. She conducts an experiment in which she divides the participants to two groups. One group is consistently given excellent grades in math by their teachers, whether they are actually doing well or not. The other group is consistently given average scores by their teachers. After two months, she gives the boys the same self-esteem questionnaire that she administered to them before the test. In the context of experimental research, the group that receives average grades consistently is the:

In the given experiment there two groups of participants: the experimental group - students who are consistently given excellent grades in math by their teachers, and the control group - students who are consistently given average scores. The control group is not under influence of the factor of consistently high grades (independent variable), impact of which on self esteem Noelle is testing. Here, the control group is used as a benchmark to measure the effect of the independent variable under investigation.