4 ms·
Since it's a "statistics class", I'd assume "best plan of action" would mean "which one of the options introduces less amount of bias" here. Like many I also st
by franciscop 4y ago
Since it's a "statistics class", I'd assume "best plan of action" would mean "which one of the options introduces less amount of bias" here. Like many I also struggled a bit with the question in isolation, but considering this IS a statistics class, it's probably trying to find how students would minimize bias here.
For this reason, assuming 30 people didn't answer due to some given bias*, assuming they were properly and randomly selected option B sending to another 120 students would probably hit the same bias again and we should expect around 30 students to also not answer due to this. So B and D both are hitting the same bias. Same for E, but with a smaller sample size. The only viable option is A, for which (assuming a normal bias) we should expect that some amount of the the students who did not answer initially would answer after some nudging, hence reducing the total amount of bias. We could be missing the strongest biased here and that might be relevant; but with this strategy at least we would maintain-to-reduce the amount of bias (vs maintaining it with all other options).
We could also offer some stronger incentive for those 30 to answer, either stick or carrot, but that's not an option.
*this could be anything and we are not measuring/finding it, but for some example of possible biases some students might have too many courses and biased against answering optional questionnaires, some might not be affected directly by the questionnaire so think not to answer, maybe the ones in univ. dorms tend to answer more than the ones commuting, etc.
- peteradio 4y agoWhat really matters is if the bias of your experiment is understood/understandable by downstream consumers of your result. Question is poor in my opinion because it displays an ignorance of the basics of experiment consumption.
- jrumbut 4y agoI disagree, the answer ought to be whatever was planned in advance (before they saw the initial data). Once they've peeked at the data, it's not good to change the experimental procedure as is being suggested here. The plan should have included some accommodation for non-response (like a reminder email, a suitable reward, etc), but if it didn't it's too late now. They should analyze the data they collected and apply lessons learned to the next survey. A single reminder email is probably not a big source of bias, but something like increased rewards really could be. To make it ridiculous, if the school emailed the 30 non-responders and offered them $100,000 cash to fill out the survey, then asked "how do you feel about your school?" they will get very different responses than they got from the students who were offered a $5 bookstore gift card.
- dsfyu404ed 4y agoDepending on the value of "whatever was planned in advance" you could potentially do both.
- jrumbut 4y agoExactly, it's not about always doing X and never doing Y, but designing a procedure that best answers your research question (within the constraints of practicality) and reporting results in a way that they accurately reflect what you really did.