Exercises 5–8 refer to the study of an association between whi...

Question

Exercises 5–8 refer to the study of an association between which ear is used for cell phone calls and whether the subject is left-handed or right-handed. The study is reported in “Hemispheric Dominance and Cell Phone Use,” by Seidman et al., JAMA Otolaryngology—Head & Neck Surgery, Vol. 139, No. 5. The study began with a survey e-mailed to 5000 people belonging to an otology online group, and 717 surveys were returned. (Otology relates to the ear and hearing.)
Experiment or Observational Study Is the study an experiment or an observational study? Explain.

Experiment or Observational Study Is the study an experiment or an observational study? Explain.

Accepted Answer

Hello everyone. Let's take a look at this question together, which this question is talking about a study on sleep patterns and academic performance, which it says a study was conducted to examine the relationship between students' sleep patterns and their academic performance. Researchers sent an online survey to 4000 university students asking about their average sleep duration and their most recent GPA. Out of the 4000 students contacted, 850 responded to the survey. Is this study an experiment or an observational study? Explain. Is it answer choice A, an experiment because researchers assigned students to different sleep schedules to observe GPA changes? Answer choice B, observational study because researchers did not control or assign sleep patterns but simply collected survey responses. Answer choice C, experiment because participants were divided into sleep groups and monitored over time, or answer choice D observational study because students were required to change their sleep habits and report GPA changes. So in order to solve this question, we have to. Recall what we have learned about the differences between an experiment and an observational study to determine if this study is an experiment or an observational study, and why. Well, first, let's recall the difference between an experiment and an observational study, which we know that an experiment refers to a study involving active manipulation of variables by the researchers, typically with control. And treatment groups, for example, assigning one group to get 6 hours of sleep and another to get 8 hours of sleep. And we can also recall that an observational study is a study where researchers do not interfere with the subjects, and instead they are only there to observe and collect data without influencing the participants. So looking back at the study that was conducted to examine the Relationship between students' sleep patterns and their academic performance, we know that the researchers sent a survey to 4000 university students asking about their average sleep duration and their most recent GPA. Well, from that information, we can identify that the researchers only collected data and that there was no intervention by the researchers. So since the The study that was conducted involved researchers only observing and collecting data without influencing the participants. We know that this study was an observational study, which makes answer choice B the correct answer. As Answer Choice B says, this was an observational study because the researchers did not control or assign sleep patterns, but simply collected survey responses. And all other answer choices are incorrect. I hope you found this video to be helpful. Thank you and goodbye.

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Key Concepts

Experiment vs Observational Study

Sampling Method

Hemispheric Dominance

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