COMPSCI 109A – Ed Lessons T

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The Fundamental Problem of Causal Inference refers to:

☾ Lecture 21: Causal
Inference
The challenge in !nding enough data to make a causal inference.

Story Board
The inability to observe all potential outcomes for a single individual.
Pre-Class Assignment

Slides The di"culty in performing randomized controlled trials for all types of research questions.

Post-Class Quiz
The problem of having too many confounders in a dataset.

Explanation

The fundamental problem of causal inference is that we can only observe one outcome for any individual
- either the outcome under treatment or the outcome under control. To infer causality, we have to make
assumptions because we can never observe both potential outcomes for the same individual.

Question 3 SUBMITTED

If a variable is considered a confounder, then…

It is not correlated with either the treatment or the response.

It is correlated with the treatment but not the response.

It is not correlated with the treatment but is correlated with the response

It is correlated with both the treatment and the response

Question 4 SUBMITTED

When attempting to measure a causal e!ect in observational studies, adjusting for confounders
is important because:

It allows for the prediction of treatment e#ects without bias.

It ensures that the treatment e#ect is the same for all subjects.

It eliminates the need for randomized controlled trials.