Description
1 exercise : Initial thread on discussion board. 400 words
Step 1: Answer all three questions below and be sure to explain your reasoning.
Example of satisfactory response to classmates:
?Jane, I agree with your response to question 1. However, I would add that you should consider?.?
Example of unsatisfactory response to classmates:
?Jane, great job!?
Use the following scenarios for questions 1 through 3:
Researchers want to determine if there is a relationship between whether or not a woman smoked during
pregnancy and the birth weight of her baby.
A. Researchers examined records for the past five years at a large hospital.
B. A large high school wants to know the proportion of students who currently use illegal drugs.
Uniformed police officers asked a random sample of 200 students about their drug use.
C. A company develops a new dog food. The company wants to know if dogs would prefer its new food
over the competition?s dog food. One hundred dogs, who were food deprived overnight, were given equal
amounts of the two dog foods: the new food versus the competitor?s food. The proportion of dogs
preferring the new food versus the competitor?s was recorded.
1 ? Which scenario above describes an experiment? Explain why.
2 ? Which scenario describes a survey? Will the results of the survey be accurate? Why or Why not?
3 ? The remaining scenario is an observational study. Is it possible to perform an experiment to determine
if a relationship exists? Why or why not?
2 exercise : Answer to 2 colleagues 150 words each response. Critique their response and
provide feedback.
Student 1 :
C. A company develops a new dog food. The company wants to know if dogs would prefer its new food
over the competition?s dog food. One hundred dogs, who were food deprived overnight, were given
equal amounts of the two dog foods: the new food versus the competitor?s food. The proportion of dogs
preferring the new food versus the competitor?s was recorded.
This would be considered an experiment because the dogs were affected as they ?were food deprived?
and because there were two types of food provided to them to determine if one is picked over the
other. This allowed for data to be collected. The experiment manipulates one variable in an attempt to
cause an effect on another variable.
2 ? Which scenario describes a survey? Will the results of the survey be accurate? Why or why not?
B. A large high school wants to know the proportion of students who currently use illegal drugs.
Uniformed police officers asked a random sample of 200 students about their drug use.
This would be considered a survey. The survey may not be accurate as most teens would not be 100%
honest with their responses especially when asked by a form of authority.
3 ? The remaining scenario is an observational study. Is it possible to perform an experiment to
determine if a relationship exists? Why or why not?
A. Researchers examined records for the past five years at a large hospital. This would be an
observational study because it is observing information on women who smoked during pregnancy and
the birth weight of the baby. It observes individuals and measures variables of interest.
Student 2
1. Scenario C describes an experiment because it involves proving that there is a cause and effect
relationship between the two variables. The explanatory variable is the type of dog food provided and the
response variable is the food preference of the dogs. The researchers planned for confounding variables
using a number of strategies. The dogs were deprived of food to ensure that they were all very hungry
and the amount of each type of dog food given was kept the same. This helped ensured that the
conditions were kept similiar for all the dogs to avoid confounding variables.
2. Scenario B describes a survey because data is being collected from a sample of high school students
to help make inferences about the population; in this case the population would be all high school
students. It is important that the sample is random so that the survey could be free from bias as much as
possible to have the best chance of being representative of the entire high school student population. The
study will not prove a cause and effect relationship exists; however it will provide some useful insight. In
my opinion, I believe the results of the survey will be inaccurate because the students may not feel
comfortable giving truthful responses to uniformed police officers due to fear of repercussions.
3. Scenario A is a observational study because the goal is to try to see if there is a correlation between 2
variables without manipulating the variables. They are trying to investigate a correlation between low birth
weight and smoking during pregnancy by examining medical records. It is not possible to perform an
experiment based on this study as it would be unethical. In order to perform an experiment on this, there
would have to be an experimental group and a control group. The experimental group would be forced to
smoke while pregnant and the control group would refrain from smoking. This experiment would be
harmful to both the mothers and the children in the experimental group, therefore an observational study
is more appropriate.
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