It is important that students of statistics take time to consider the ethical questions that arise in statistical studies. How prevalent is fraud in statistical studies? You might be surprised—and disappointed. There is a website
(www.retractionwatch.com) dedicated to cataloging retractions of study articles that have been proven fraudulent. A quick glance will show that the misuse of statistics is a bigger problem than most people realize.
Vigilance against fraud requires knowledge. Learning the basic theory of statistics will empower you to analyze statistical studies critically.
Describe the unethical behavior in each example and describe how it could impact the reliability of the resulting data. Explain how the problem should be corrected.
A researcher is collecting data in a community.
She selects a block where she is comfortable walking because she knows many of the people living on the street.
No one seems to be home at four houses on her route. She does not record the addresses and does not return at a later time to try to find residents at home.
She skips four houses on her route because she is running late for an appointment. When she gets home, she fills in the forms by selecting random answers from other residents in the neighborhood.
By selecting a convenient sample, the researcher is intentionally selecting a sample that could be biased. Claiming that this sample represents the community is misleading. The researcher needs to select areas in the community at random.
Intentionally omitting relevant data will create bias in the sample. Suppose the researcher is gathering information about jobs and child care. By ignoring people who are not home, she may be missing data from working families that are relevant to her study. She needs to make every effort to interview all members of the target sample.
It is never acceptable to fake data. Even though the responses she uses are “real” responses provided by other participants, the duplication is fraudulent and can create bias in the data. She needs to work diligently to interview everyone on her route.
Describe the unethical behavior, if any, in each example and describe how it could impact the reliability of the resulting data. Explain how the problem should be corrected.
A study is commissioned to determine the favorite brand of fruit juice among teens in California.
The survey is commissioned by the seller of a popular brand of apple juice.
There are only two types of juice included in the study: apple juice and cranberry juice.
Researchers allow participants to see the brand of juice as samples are poured for a taste test.
Twenty-five percent of participants prefer Brand X, 33% prefer Brand Y and 42% have no preference between the two brands. Brand X references the study in a commercial saying “Most teens like Brand X as much as or more than Brand Y.”
This is not necessarily a problem. The study should be monitored carefully, however, to ensure that the company is not pressuring researchers to return biased results.
If the researchers truly want to determine the favorite brand of juice, then researchers should ask teens to compare different brands of the same type of juice. Choosing a sweet juice to compare against a sharp-flavored juice will not lead to an accurate comparison of brand quality.
Participants could be biased by the knowledge. The results may be different from those obtained in a blind taste test.
The commercial tells the truth, but not the whole truth. It leads consumers to believe that Brand X was preferred by more participants than Brand Y while the opposite is true.
