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For example, if an outdoor experiment were to be conducted to compare how different wing designs of a paper airplane (the independent variable) affect how far it can fly (the dependent variable), one would want to ensure that the experiment is conducted at times when the weather is the same, because one would not want weather to affect the ...
The goal of matching is to reduce bias for the estimated treatment effect in an observational-data study, by finding, for every treated unit, one (or more) non-treated unit(s) with similar observable characteristics against which the covariates are balanced out (similar to the K-nearest neighbors algorithm).
An operational confounding can occur in both experimental and non-experimental research designs. This type of confounding occurs when a measure designed to assess a particular construct inadvertently measures something else as well. [20] A procedural confounding can occur in a laboratory experiment or a quasi-experiment. This type of confound ...
The "propensity" describes how likely a unit is to have been treated, given its covariate values. The stronger the confounding of treatment and covariates, and hence the stronger the bias in the analysis of the naive treatment effect, the better the covariates predict whether a unit is treated or not.
For example, when getting to know others, people tend to ask leading questions which seem biased towards confirming their assumptions about the person. However, this kind of confirmation bias has also been argued to be an example of social skill; a way to establish a connection with the other person. [9]
By contrast, other forms of blinding, used after the assignment of treatments, serve primarily to reduce ascertainment bias. Second, from a practical standpoint, concealing treatment assignment up to the point of allocation is always possible, regardless of the study topic, whereas blinding after allocation is not attainable in many instances ...
Adaptive bias is the idea that the human brain has evolved to reason adaptively, rather than truthfully or even rationally, [clarification needed] and that cognitive bias may have evolved as a mechanism to reduce the overall cost of cognitive errors as opposed to merely reducing the number of cognitive errors, when faced with making a decision under conditions of uncertainty.
Good blinding can reduce or eliminate experimental biases that arise from a participants' expectations, observer's effect on the participants, observer bias, confirmation bias, and other sources. A blind can be imposed on any participant of an experiment, including subjects, researchers, technicians, data analysts, and evaluators.