Search Results

Tour of the book

Myoung-Jae Lee

in Micro-Econometrics for Policy, Program and Treatment Effects

This introductory chapter provides a quick overview of the following six chapters.

Group Responsibility

Raimo Tuomela

in The Philosophy of Sociality: The Shared Point of View

The main idea about group responsibility is that we-mode groups, namely, groups in which a substantial number of the members are collectively committed to the group (to its ethos and to each other ... More

The main idea about group responsibility is that we-mode groups, namely, groups in which a substantial number of the members are collectively committed to the group (to its ethos and to each other concerning ethos promotion), are normatively responsible—in a control-based sense of responsibility—for their actions and for what their members, also violators and dissidents, do. In contrast to we-mode groups, I-mode groups, are not responsible as groups for actions or outcomes. However, their members are jointly responsible for what they intentionally jointly (although not as a group) cause.Less

Expectancy Control Groups

Robert Rosenthal

in Artifacts in Behavioral Research: Robert Rosenthal and Ralph L. Rosnow's Classic Books

The previous chapter discussed strategies which attempt to minimize experimenter expectancy effects. This chapter discusses a strategy which essentially attempts to maximize experimenter expectancy ... More

The previous chapter discussed strategies which attempt to minimize experimenter expectancy effects. This chapter discusses a strategy which essentially attempts to maximize experimenter expectancy effects by the employment of “expectancy control groups”.Less

Choosing Controls in Biologic Psychiatry

Ezra Susser, Sharon Schwartz, Alfredo Morabia, and Evelyn J. Bromet

in Psychiatric Epidemiology: Searching for the Causes of Mental Disorders

One of the most difficult and intellectually intriguing tasks of a biologic case-control study is the selection of the control group. An inappropriate control group can mask the presence of a true ... More

One of the most difficult and intellectually intriguing tasks of a biologic case-control study is the selection of the control group. An inappropriate control group can mask the presence of a true association or create the illusion of an association when one does not exist. Choosing a control group depends on thinking through the implications of many other features of the study: the types of cases being selected, the biologic process being examined, and most critically, the specific hypothesis being tested. No criteria can be advanced to define the perfect control group, because there is no control group that is appropriate for all or even most case-control studies. Nonetheless, it is possible to approach the task systematically. The previous chapters derived a practical guideline for making the best choice of a control group in an ordinary case-control study. This chapter demonstrates how it can be applied to biologic studies of causes. It takes up a central question, applies the guideline, and arrives at an answer that has important implications for biologic research.Less

The Makings of an Entrepreneur

Edward B. Roberts

in Entrepreneurs in High Technology: Lessons from MIT and Beyond

Besides the conditions presented in the previous chapter, there are “other conditions” that influence people (in this case young scientists and engineers) to pursue entrepreneurship, and this is the ... More

Besides the conditions presented in the previous chapter, there are “other conditions” that influence people (in this case young scientists and engineers) to pursue entrepreneurship, and this is the main concern of this chapter. It seeks to explain empirically the origins of the technology-based entrepreneur, comparing samples of entrepreneurs with appropriate control groups of scientists and engineers employed at key Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) entrepreneurial source organizations. Extensive analyses on the family background, education, age, and work experience of several technological entrepreneurs are illustrated. The author claims that this type of “controlled” comparison provides higher reliability for drawing conclusions as to the unique “makings” of a technological entrepreneur.Less

Quasi-Experimental Group Designs

Bruce A Thyer

in Quasi-Experimental Research Designs

The quasi-experimental designs compare the outcomes of social work for a group of clients who receive a novel intervention that is the focus on investigation, against the outcomes observed by a ... More

The quasi-experimental designs compare the outcomes of social work for a group of clients who receive a novel intervention that is the focus on investigation, against the outcomes observed by a similar group of clients who received either no treatment (a control group) or an alternative treatment (a comparison group). Among these methods are the posttest-only control group design, the posttest-only comparison group design, the pretest-posttest no-treatment control group design, the pretest-posttest alternative treatment comparison group design, the swtiching replications design, and dismantling studies, wherein a 'complete' intervention's outcomes are compared with the outcomes following receipt of a partial intervention. The role of placebo control groups is introduced as a means of providing a more rigorous appraisal of the specific effects of an intervention, compared to its nonspecific effects.Less

Scope and Methods

John Child, David Faulkner, and Robert Pitkethly

in The Management of International Acquisitions

This chapter describes the scope and methods of the original research undertaken for this book. It explains how the combination of a survey and case studies — employing primarily quantitative and ... More

This chapter describes the scope and methods of the original research undertaken for this book. It explains how the combination of a survey and case studies — employing primarily quantitative and qualitative methods respectively — provided a credible picture of the impact of the foreign companies on their new British subsidiaries. Details are provided on the population, survey sample, checks for bias, and case study selection. Details of the survey and case study questions and the broad characteristics of case study companies are also given. The investigation of a number of UK acquisitions by UK companies as a control group is described and justified. The practical difficulties encountered in compiling reliable and comprehensive data on acquisitions in the UK point to the need for better information in this important policy area. The range of research methods employed facilitated the successful triangulation of the field of study.Less

Conclusion

Robert Rosenthal

in Artifacts in Behavioral Research: Robert Rosenthal and Ralph L. Rosnow's Classic Books

Theoretical integration, applications in other areas (e.g., teachers’ expectations and their students’ performance), and procedures for dealing with experimenter expectancy effects within this ... More

Theoretical integration, applications in other areas (e.g., teachers’ expectations and their students’ performance), and procedures for dealing with experimenter expectancy effects within this conceptual framework, including the sampling of experimenters, blind and minimized contact between experimenters and subjects, expectancy control groups, and so on.Less

Baseline Results

David Daley, Rasmus Højbjerg Jacobsen, Anne‐Mette Lange, Anders Sørensen, and Jeanette Walldorf

in Costing Adult Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Impact on the Individual and Society

In this chapter, the baseline results obtained when using ‘nearest neighbour’ propensity score matching are presented. The overall findings suggest that individuals with ADHD (the treatment groups) ... More

In this chapter, the baseline results obtained when using ‘nearest neighbour’ propensity score matching are presented. The overall findings suggest that individuals with ADHD (the treatment groups) exhibit weak performance on a large set of performance measures compared to non-ADHD individuals (the matched control groups). Performance measures are grouped based on occupational status, income, educational attainment, crime and traffic accidents, childhood outcomes, family composition, and health measures. The matched control group is selected by pairing each ADHD individual from the treatment groups with a non-ADHD individual who is similar with respect to observable variables. Specifically, a non-ADHD individual is selected for the matched control group if he possesses the background characteristics that are most similar to those of a specific ADHD individual in the treatment group. Background variables include demographic characteristics and comorbid psychiatric diagnoses.Less

It Was Talking about My Life: Developing Working-Class Feminism

Tamar W. Carroll

in Mobilizing New York: AIDS, Antipoverty, and Feminist Activism

This chapter chronicles the Reagan administration's elimination of Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), and its massive cutbacks on funding for community programs in the 1980s, which ... More

This chapter chronicles the Reagan administration's elimination of Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), and its massive cutbacks on funding for community programs in the 1980s, which marked a turning point for the NCNW and for wider progressive activism. As federal funding became scarce and highly restrictive, activists increasingly relied on foundations and the nonprofit sector. However, foundations were also influenced by the ascendancy of conservative critiques of social programs and implemented their own requirements for evaluation; in the practice of random assignment research, one person seeking services would have to be turned away for each person receiving them in order to have a “control group” against which to measure program effectiveness.Less

More Trials and Some Tribulations

Michael B. Bracken

in Risk, Chance, and Causation: Investigating the Origins and Treatment of Disease

This chapter presents and discusses a scenario wherein randomized clinical trials do not work. Some of the problems it looks at include patients discussing their experimental treatment with other ... More

This chapter presents and discusses a scenario wherein randomized clinical trials do not work. Some of the problems it looks at include patients discussing their experimental treatment with other patients who are in the control group, doctors prematurely adopting the experimental therapy, and the fact that the majority of trials do not show benefit from the experimental therapy. Some may abandon a trial altogether because of a lack of participants; in this case, the possible benefit to future patients is eliminated. The only way medicine can advance is through the conclusion of medical trials—be a trial a validation of a beneficial therapy or a non-beneficial or even harmful one. Where a randomized trial cannot be successful, a cluster trial may be an appropriate alternative. This is a trial design where an entire hospital, clinic, village, or even community is randomly selected so it can be treated in the experimental manner, and another hospital or community is selected to provide the control group.Less

Working Memory Training From an Individual Differences Perspective: Efficacy in Older Adults

Erika Borella, Barbara Carretti, Cesare Cornoldi, and Rossana De Beni

in Cognitive and Working Memory Training: Perspectives from Psychology, Neuroscience, and Human Development

This chapter presents and discusses a verbal WM training developed for older adults. The model of working memory (WM) proposed by Cornoldi and Vecchi, which is based on an analysis of individual and ... More

This chapter presents and discusses a verbal WM training developed for older adults. The model of working memory (WM) proposed by Cornoldi and Vecchi, which is based on an analysis of individual and age-related differences, is used as a framework for discussing the efficacy of the WM training procedure proposed and developed for older adults. The model (a) assumes that different WM tasks (and underlying processes) may be located along two continua that describe the type of content to be processed and the degree of active control required by the task and (b) considers metacognitive/motivational aspects, which also have a role in determining WM performance. The WM training procedure presented here takes into account not only the capacity to use WM resources and attentional control by adopting an adaptive procedure, but also the importance of including variations in the training task demands to produce a challenging and engaging task that sustains motivation and favor the training’s short- and long-term efficacy, at least in older adults. These aspects seem crucial in explaining the results obtained with this verbal WM training program in aging.Less

The Calculation of Private and Social Costs

David Daley, Rasmus Højbjerg Jacobsen, Anne‐Mette Lange, Anders Sørensen, and Jeanette Walldorf

in Costing Adult Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Impact on the Individual and Society

This chapter contains cost-of-illness calculations of adult ADHD. Costs are divided into private costs (disposable income, other private costs) and public costs (income tax and transfers, educational ... More

This chapter contains cost-of-illness calculations of adult ADHD. Costs are divided into private costs (disposable income, other private costs) and public costs (income tax and transfers, educational expenses, crime and traffic, public expenses on placements, medical expenses). The private costs of ADHD are large in terms of loss of wage income. Part of this loss is covered by the receipt of income-replacement transfers and the lower tax payments. Compared to their non-ADHD siblings, individuals with ADHD experience a loss of approximately 650 euros per month after taxes. The public costs of ADHD are also large, with the largest part being due to loss of income taxes and larger expenses on income transfers, and a smaller part being due to health care. In total, compared to non-ADHD siblings, individuals with ADHD lead to a social loss of 17,800 euros per individual per year.Less

Methodology and Econometric Challenges

David Daley, Rasmus Højbjerg Jacobsen, Anne‐Mette Lange, Anders Sørensen, and Jeanette Walldorf

in Costing Adult Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Impact on the Individual and Society

In this chapter, a non-technical explanation of the empirical approach to assess the differences between individuals with ADHD and non-ADHD individuals is presented. The applied methodology is ... More

In this chapter, a non-technical explanation of the empirical approach to assess the differences between individuals with ADHD and non-ADHD individuals is presented. The applied methodology is propensity score matching and the task of selecting a matched control group similar to the treatment group with respect to various observable aspects is described. Relevant methodological issues are discussed, especially the challenges associated with unobservable heterogeneity. This aspect is addressed by comparing the treatment group of individuals with ADHD with their siblings without ADHD to compare individuals who have been raised in shared environments. The advantage of using sibling-based control groups is that siblings are similar with respect to many of the characteristics that are difficult to observe. In this sense, the concern that unobserved differences play an important role in determining the observed differences between the treatment and control groups is reduced.Less

A Sibling-Based Analysis—Addressing Unobserved Heterogeneity

David Daley, Rasmus Højbjerg Jacobsen, Anne‐Mette Lange, Anders Sørensen, and Jeanette Walldorf

in Costing Adult Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Impact on the Individual and Society

In this chapter, a sibling-based analysis is presented that compares individuals with ADHD (treatment groups) to sibling-based matched control groups. The advantage of this analysis is that siblings ... More

In this chapter, a sibling-based analysis is presented that compares individuals with ADHD (treatment groups) to sibling-based matched control groups. The advantage of this analysis is that siblings are similar with respect to many of the aspects that are difficult to observe, such as genetic differences and social-background factors during childhood and upbringing, which are similar across siblings. The overall finding is that ADHD individuals exhibit weak performance compared with their non-ADHD siblings with respect to a large number of performance measures that are grouped around occupational status, income and public transfers, educational attainment, crime and traffic accidents, childhood outcomes, family composition, and health measures. Ultimately, the baseline results presented in Chapter 7 are robust to the use of sibling-based matched control groups.Less

Designing a Research Study

Jacqueline M. Dewar

in The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: A Guide for Scientists, Engineers, and Mathematicians

Chapter 3 examines basic considerations of education research design, such as whether or not to have experimental and control groups. Because many scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) ... More

Chapter 3 examines basic considerations of education research design, such as whether or not to have experimental and control groups. Because many scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) questions arise in situations where it is not possible to have a control group, a number of other options are presented. The taxonomy of SoTL questions—What works? What is? What could be?—and frameworks such as “decoding the disciplines” and “threshold concepts” are used to suggest different ways to conduct an investigation. The importance of aligning the evidence with the research question and choosing an appropriate measure of change are also considered. The chapter closes with a discussion of the requirement to obtain human subjects clearance in order to make the results of a SoTL study public.Less

Ethics of RCTs: Should Economists Care about Equipoise?

Michel Abramowicz and Ariane Szafarz

in Randomized Control Trials in the Field of Development: A Critical Perspective

Equipoise is defined by Freedman (1987: 141) as a “state of genuine uncertainty on the part of the clinical investigator regarding the comparative therapeutic merits of each arm in a trial.” This ... More

Equipoise is defined by Freedman (1987: 141) as a “state of genuine uncertainty on the part of the clinical investigator regarding the comparative therapeutic merits of each arm in a trial.” This principle is grounded in the ethical motivation that any ex-ante preference for a given option would undermine the interests of those who are offered another. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in development economics disregard the equipoise requirement by typically disadvantaging the control group. This chapter investigates how the equipoise principle is formalized in the medical literature and discusses whether and how it should be taken into consideration by economists. It argues that equipoise is especially relevant when double (or even single) blindness is excluded and when the control group includes already vulnerable individuals. More generally, this chapter advocates for developing a vibrant ethics conversation on the design and fairness of RCTs in social sciences.Less

The Study

James C. Oleson

in Criminal Genius: A Portrait of High-IQ Offenders

Little is known about high-IQ criminals because they are statistically rare. Only 2 percent of the general population has an IQ score of over 130 and only one in two thousand possesses an IQ of over ... More

Little is known about high-IQ criminals because they are statistically rare. Only 2 percent of the general population has an IQ score of over 130 and only one in two thousand possesses an IQ of over 150. Another reason little is known is that few are caught. The differential detection hypothesis suggests that people with high IQs are less likely to be detected, arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and incarcerated than others. Prison studies, therefore, are of limited utility, and to study elite crime, self-report is essential. There is, however, little advantage for high-IQ individuals to participate in self-report research—and potentially much to lose. High-IQ individuals often possess the means to block research inquiries. This chapter describes the methodology of the study, including ethical and legal challenges associated with adult self-report research. It describes the study’s sampling, the design of the self-report questionnaire, the rationale and logistics of the follow-up interviews, and the structure of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ-R).Less

Cognitive Perspectives of Working Memory Training: Current Challenges in Working Memory Training

Kenny Hicks and Randall W. Engle

in Cognitive and Working Memory Training: Perspectives From Psychology, Neuroscience, and Human Development

Working memory training is an emergent field aimed at improving general cognitive abilities through targeted brain exercises. The prospect of improving cognitive abilities, such as attention control, ... More

Working memory training is an emergent field aimed at improving general cognitive abilities through targeted brain exercises. The prospect of improving cognitive abilities, such as attention control, comprehension, and reasoning, has piqued the interest of the scientific community and the general public alike. If cognitive abilities like working memory capacity can be improved, it is assumed that this improvement will result in benefits to a broad range of real-world abilities associated with working memory capacity, including reading comprehension, math performance, and attention control. Thus, the goal of working memory training is to demonstrate broad transfer to tasks that involve the same components of working memory that were targeted during training. Therefore, improvements should be observed on a broad range of tasks that tap the ability being trained. This is measured by observing the difference between pre- and posttest performance on cognitive tasks that subjects have not practiced. The aim of this chapter is to summarize the extant literature on working memory training and then to pose a series of questions to researchers investigating the efficacy of working memory training.Less