Biases Review
Many types of bias- measurement bias, selection bias, halo effect- can be said to forms of this, “mother of all” bias. Which form of bias could this refer?
Confirmation Bias
What do HeLa cells stand for?
Henrietta Lacks
We read that in Bean’s skull measurements, his African skulls were mostly female, and his Caucasian skulls mostly male. What key element of study design did he fail to include here?
Controls
Before beginning her experiment, a research speaks to a third-party about how many tests she will conduct before stopping. What is this?
Pre- registration
Name of first UVA president who promoted an influential eugenic program on campus
Alderaman
Scientists pick participants at random for most studies- what kind of bias is this to prevent?
Selection Bias
Consent must be- informed, voluntary, un-coerced. Which was not present in the Alabama forced sterilization practices?
Lack of coercion
Name the effect by which a participant receives a health benefit from a study, even if they did not actually receive the test drug?
Placebo effect
What is the definition of a p value?
The probability that a significant result is only due to random chance
Name of place where cadavers were often stolen, and used for med student dissections?
Anatomical Theater
Many researchers in our book reports showed pervasive procedural bias/errors in their studies. What may be the reason?
At worst, many of these researchers likely viewed the participants as less deserving of human rights, at best, their confirmation bias impacted their scientific design.
Consent must be- informed, voluntary, un-coerced. Which was not present in the Cincinnati radiation study?
Lack of proper informing
Say you have 1000 volunteers for a medical study. You only have the funds to test 100 of them. How do you make your selections?
Selection should be as random as possible
What effect does multiple testing correction usually have on the recorded p values?
It will raise the p values
Which UVA building has a beautiful rock collection on display
Clark Hall
What form of bias do we try to avoid by using double-blind methods? (not confirmation bias)
Measurement Bias
What belief involving “patient skin” did a study identify over half of the med students possessed?
That black patients had "thicker" skin, and thus felt less pain then white patients
Say you want to test the effect of three drugs. It would be incorrect to test all of drug A, then drug B, then drug C. What is the name of the error from this study design?
Block effect
Define a “fishing expedition” in statistical terms
A fishing expedition is a study that goes "fishing" for a hypothesis- doing experiments at random until they discover a result
Which of these UVA buildings are NOT connected by underground tunnels?
A Chemistry and Gilmer
B Brown College
C New Cabell and Old Cabell
D Clemmons and Shannon Library
C
Which bias explains the general lack of “negative data” available in the literature?
Publication Bias
The Tuskegee experiment led to creation of what federal organization to ensure consent in research?
The Institutional Review Board (IRB)
In a double blind, both the participant and the researcher are blinded to parts of the experiment. In a “triple blind,” who could the third group be?
The data analysists
Why do you think studies such as physics, which may study hundreds of variables, use such low alphas (such as 0.0001).
They need very low alphas to reduce the risk of false positives- because they have so many tests
How many former/current students did uva send to the Paris Olympics?
17