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Sources of bias in research
Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth;
And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,
With windlasses and with assays of bias,
By indirections find directions out.
-Wm. Shakespeare (“Hamlet”)
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Scientists’ attitudes
• There is always a degree of uncertainty;
• Important to remain open-minded;
• Everyone is fallible;
• Must be skeptical;
• Must be cautious;
• Must be ethical.
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Common sources of bias
• Adjustment and narrowing
• Availability
• Selective perception
• Wishful thinking
• Base rate
• Cognitive conservatism
• Order effects
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More sources of bias…
• Data saturation
• Law of small numbers
• Representativeness
• Desire for self-fulfilling prophecies
• Fact-value confusion
• Attribution errors
• Gambler’s fallacy
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Even more sources of bias…
• Overconfidence
• Redundancy
• Motivational biases– Fear– Dishonesty– Greed
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Avoiding bias
• Recognize that biases exist
• Sample information broadly
• Look for data on both sides
• Use models and consistency analysis
• Use proper scaling methods
• Give equal treatment to qualitative and quantitative data
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Avoiding bias (cont’d)…
• Ensure that sample characteristics are associated and presented with the data
• Analyze past decisions
• Determine prior good and poor decisions
• Present information/data in several forms
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Selection bias…
can occur in group comparison studies and retrospective studies
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Observer bias…
Can occur in behavior observation research
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Recall bias…
Can occur in survey research
-social desirability effects
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Non-response bias…
Can occur in survey research
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Research designs
• How was the sample selected?• Is the sample representative of population?• What type of study
– Descriptive?– Correlation?– Group comparison?– Qualitative or historical?
• What is known about the measures?• Data analyses appropriate?
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Interpreting Research Results
• Are conclusions consistent with results?
• Practical vs. statistical significance?
• Can cause and effect be established?
• Importance of results for the population?