STAB22H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Observational Study, Insomnia, Dependent And Independent Variables

• School: UTSC
• Department: Statistics
• Course: STAB22H3
• Professor: Caren Hasler, Mahinda Samarakoon

Document Summary

Stab22 - lecture 17 - experimental studies & observational studies (march 4th, 2019) Observational study : observes individuals and measures variables of interest but doesn"t try to change response. Observational studies are good for discovering trends and relationships, but it can"t be used to show a casual relationship (does one cause the other). For these, experimental studies are used instead to show a cause and effect. Experimental study : use a treatment on individuals in order to observe their response. One example would be injecting a drug into a patient and see what kind of responses they show. Ex 1 : we want to know whether exercise helps decrease insomnia. We look at a bunch of people, find out if they exercise and how much, and ask them to rate their insomnia. Suppose that the people who exercise more suffer less from insomnia. The reason is because we can"t say this is cause and effect (a causation).