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Chapter 5 and 6
Tuesday, September 4, 2018 12:37 PM

• Observational study: observes individuals and measures variables of

interest but does not attempt to influence responses (stand back and
watch)
○ A survey is a type of observational study
• Experiment: deliberately impose some treatment on individuals in order
to observe their responses
○ The purpose of an experiment is to study whether the treatment
causes a change in the response

Explanatory vs Response Variables

• Explanatory = what you're doing to test the question, what causes the
response
○ Sometimes called independent variable
• Response = What you're measuring in the end, the outcome
○ Sometimes called dependent variable
• Treatment: any specific experimental condition applied to subjects; may
be a combination of specific values of several explanatory variables
• Lurking variable: another variable that may be unaccounted for that can
affect response, something you want to control
• Confounding variable: when 2 variables' effects on a response variable
cannot be distinguished from each other
○ May be either explanatory or lurking variables

Principles of Experimental Design

1) Control: control effects of lurking variables on the response by ensuring
all subjects are affected similarly by variables, then compare 2 or more
treatments
2) Randomize: randomly assigning your sample to different treatment
groups
a. Use impersonal chance so groups are similar, on average, at
beginning of study
b. Helps reduce bias
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3) Use enough subjects: helps reduce variability, statistics should be pretty
similar when we look from sample to sample

What does it mean to be statistically significant?

• We obtain a result that would rarely occur by chance alone
• NOT the same thing as "practical significance"
○ Has to do with the implications of the findings

Simplest designed experiment:

Random assignment of subjects to groups -> apply treatment to groups
and subjects -> compare responses between/among the groups

• Completely Randomized Design (CRD): all experimental subjects are

randomly assigned to treatment
○ Simplest type of experiment but can have multiple explanatory
variables

Placebo Effect
• When you respond to a treatment that wasn't actually there (a
"dummy" treatment, doesn’t have active ingredients)
• The response is called the placebo effect
• Many people respond favorably; helps assess whether it’s the active
ingredient or just the "power of the mind"
• The placebo effect says that people tend to respond to any treatment
• How might we eliminate it?
○ Tell people they're getting a placebo
• Do we want to eliminate it?
○ No, if the subjects know, the effect would be weakened and cause
bias in the experiment
○ Ideally, you don’t want the individuals (nor the experimenter) to
know which group they're in
§ This is called "double-blind"