Posted by shar on January 20, 2003, at 20:37:24
In reply to Re: I still don't get it » Dinah, posted by Mitchell on January 20, 2003, at 14:37:58
In any experimental design there will be (must be) personal preferences. The principle investigator (or the PI's designee) will make choices about everything from the hypotheses, the design itself, what scales are used (if any), to data collection methods and the details involved in that, to ...well, every part of the experiment. At some point, it all comes down to personal preference. Yes, even the statistical analyses can come down to that.
The point in research is not that everything one does in an experiment or an analysis is research-based (else how would we ever come up with any new information?), but that, when published, it is properly described and, thus, open to analysis by others.
To be sure, there are generally accepted standards for doing research, but none of them ban experiments where personal preferences exist, nor do they ban experiments without control groups (the social science community would be up shit creek if they always had to have a control group; the basis of most psychology was formed without one).
So, I think that while you may disagree with Dr. Bob's choices about handling matters of manners on the board, that in itself isn't sufficient to invalidate his research or findings.
Shar
> My observation is that Hsuing published research conclusions profering his site at the best of both worlds before doing the scientific work needed to qualitatively measure the worlds he purports to have bettered. People routinely feel put down by his administrative style. The style he has chosen is based in his personal preferences, and perhaps styled to fit his capacity to manage the board.
>His preference for public admonishments and for policies that benefit what he describes as a group at the expense of individual members are not research based.Unfortunately, the product of his uncontrolled research (research with no control group) may set precedent for similar projects.
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poster:shar
thread:8860
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20021128/msgs/8913.html