Understanding Experiments Lecture 10 Section 3 5 Fri Feb 1 2008 Example Suppose a drug is given to 100 patients suffering from a particular disease After 2 weeks 90 of the patients have recovered The researchers conclude that the drug was effective What is wrong with this Random Allocation The assignment to the groups should be random a randomized design The subjects could be numbered 1 100 Then use a random number generator to obtain 50 distinct random numbers from 1 100 Those 50 subjects would be assigned to Group 1 The rest would be assigned to Group 2 Treatment and Control Groups Treatment group Control group Random vs Nonrandom Allocation Would it be wrong to allow the individuals choose whether to be in the treatment group or the control group Would it be wrong for the researchers to decide subject by subject who goes in which group Why Response Bias Are the subjects in the treatment group aware of the purpose of the experiment If Are the subjects in the control group aware that they are not receiving the drug If so will they be more likely to report feeling well so will they be more likely to report feeling ill What can we do about this Placebos Placebo Single blind experiment Placebos Everybody in the treatment group is administered the drug Everybody in the control group gets the placebo The researchers look for differences in the groups recovery rates Experimenter Bias Experimenter bias This is similar to response bias except that it is caused by the experimenter not the subject How can we control for experimenter bias Double Blind Experiments Double blind experiment The Placebo Effect The placebo effect is when a subject responds to the treatment even though the treatment was only a placebo It is difficult to control for the placebo effect
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