Lesson 1: Learning Objectives
Upon successful completion of this lesson, you will be able to:
- Identify cases and variables in a research study
- Classify variables as categorical or quantitative
- Identify explanatory and response variables in a research study
- Distinguish between a sample and a population
- Determine whether a given sample is representative of the intended population
- Identify simple random sampling and convenience sampling methods
- Use Minitab to draw a simple random sample from a known population
- Identify potential non-response and response bias
- Distinguish between experimental and observational designs
- Identify confounding variables
- Identify randomized experiments
- Determine when causal conclusions (as opposed to associations) can be made
- Classify samples as being independent or paired
- Identify control groups, placebos, and blinding in research studies and explain why each is used
In this lesson you learned about how data are collected. You were introduced to terminology that will be used throughout the course and you examined different types of research study designs (experimental and observational), sampling methods, and sources of bias. You learned that in order to make generalizations from a sample to a population the sample must be representative of the population; ideally the sample should be randomly selected using a probability-based sampling method such as a simple random sampling. In order to make a causal conclusion, randomization is required.