[nfb-talk] Participants Needed for Important Study

[T. Joseph Carter]

Humor doesn't translate through email sometimes.  I think it's a very
interesting study, which is why I chose to participate.  Without trying to
skew results, the topics discussed in the survey are pretty interesting in
my mind, and worth a few moments to explore.

Issues such as those I noted are points of discussion (usually with
amusing results) in research methods courses.  If nothing else, a study
may be influenced by its selection of subjects from the portion of the
population that are willing to be in these studies!  Taking that to its
logical conclusion, no results can be said with certainty to be truly
representative of the whole population.  If we accept that conclusion, no
inferential statistical research could yield trustworthy results.

And yet, the studies we see are often a pretty good indicator of real
life.  Apparently it seems that 100 college students taking an intro
Psychology course at the University of Texas aren't all that different
from average, normal, everyday people.  This leads to the comment that our
studies represent the population provided that the population thinks like
a bunch of college students.  *grin*


On Mon, Nov 13, 2006 at 10:30:56AM -0600, H. Field wrote:
> Well, we don't know which of the questions are seeking actual data 
> they intend to use, and which questions are just there to gather data 
> which they might, use.
> Sometimes researchers gather data in addition to that which they need 
> for the immediate, intended study topic but then they have other data 
> to examine and use for other comparisons which might show unexpected 
> trends. Many studies offer incentives to participants. Also, we don't 
> know what other participants pools she has gone fishing in, so, any 
> conclusions we draw from our current position of lack of information 
> are no better than speculation and may, in fact, prevent what could be 
> a useful study from getting participants.
> I'm sure Arielle can respond on her own behalf but I think we need to 
> support her until we have solid reasons for doing otherwise.
> Just my thoughts.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Heather Field