1. Intro to Stats and Collecting Data
Intro to Stats
1:45 minutesProblem 1.CQQ.8
Textbook Question
Physicians’ Health Study In the Physicians’ Health Study, some of the subjects were treated with aspirin while others were given a placebo. For the subjects in this experiment, what is blinding?
Verified step by step guidance1
Blinding is a technique used in experiments to prevent bias by ensuring that participants do not know which treatment they are receiving.
In the context of the Physicians’ Health Study, blinding would mean that the subjects do not know whether they are receiving aspirin or a placebo.
This is important because if subjects knew which treatment they were receiving, it could influence their behavior or perception of the treatment's effectiveness.
Blinding can be single, double, or triple. In single blinding, only the subjects are unaware of the treatment. In double blinding, both the subjects and the researchers administering the treatments do not know who is receiving which treatment.
The purpose of blinding is to ensure that the results of the study are due to the treatment itself and not influenced by participants' or researchers' expectations or biases.
Verified video answer for a similar problem:This video solution was recommended by our tutors as helpful for the problem above
Video duration:
1mWas this helpful?
Key Concepts
Here are the essential concepts you must grasp in order to answer the question correctly.
Blinding
Blinding is a technique used in experiments to prevent bias by ensuring that participants and/or researchers do not know which treatment the participants are receiving. In the context of the Physicians’ Health Study, blinding would mean that the subjects do not know whether they are receiving aspirin or a placebo, which helps to ensure that their responses are not influenced by their expectations.
Placebo
A placebo is a substance with no therapeutic effect, used as a control in testing new drugs. In the Physicians’ Health Study, the placebo serves as a comparison to the aspirin treatment, allowing researchers to determine the actual effect of aspirin by comparing outcomes between the placebo group and the treatment group.
Recommended video:
Guided course
09:27
Difference in Proportions: Hypothesis Tests
Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT)
An RCT is a study design that randomly assigns participants into an experimental group or a control group to ensure that any differences observed are due to the treatment itself and not other factors. In the Physicians’ Health Study, random assignment to aspirin or placebo groups helps to eliminate selection bias and confounding variables, providing more reliable results.
Recommended video:
Guided course
07:09Intro to Random Variables & Probability Distributions
2:13mWatch next
Master Introduction to Statistics Channel with a bite sized video explanation from Patrick
Start learning
