confounding

Examples of confounding in the following topics:

• Confounding

  • Randomized trials tend to reduce the effects of confounding by indication due to random assignment.
  • The choice of measurement instrument (operational confound) - This type of confound occurs when a measure designed to assess a particular construct inadvertently measures something else as well.
  • Situational characteristics (procedural confound) - This type of confound occurs when the researcher mistakenly allows another variable to change along with the manipulated independent variable.
  • That said, if measures or manipulations of core constructs are confounded (i.e., operational or procedural confounds exist), subgroup analysis may not reveal problems in the analysis.
  • Case-control studies assign confounders to both groups, cases and controls, equally.

• Unequal Sample Sizes

  • Therefore, Diet and Exercise are completely confounded.
  • The problem with unequal n is that it causes confounding.
  • However, there is not complete confounding as there was with the data in Table 3.
  • The second gets the sums of squares confounded between it and subsequent effects, but not confounded with the first effect, etc.
  • Data for Diet and Exercise with Partial Confounding Example

• Sex Bias in Graduate Admissions

  • The Berkeley study is one of the best known real life examples of an experiment suffering from a confounding variable.
  • The above study is one of the best known real life examples of an experiment suffering from a confounding variable.
  • This result is often encountered in social-science and medical-science statistics, and is particularly confounding when frequency data are unduly given causal interpretations.
  • Once we extract these relationships we can test algorithmically whether a given partition, representing confounding variables, gives the correct answer.
  • Illustrate how the phenomenon of confounding can be seen in practice via Simpson's Paradox.

• Observational studies

  • Sun exposure is what is called a confounding variable, which is a variable that is correlated with both the explanatory and response variables.
  • While one method to justify making causal conclusions from observational studies is to exhaust the search for confounding variables, there is no guarantee that all confounding variables can be examined or measured.
  • In the same way, the county data set is an observational study with confounding variables, and its data cannot easily be used to make causal conclusions.

• Critical Evaluation

  • Confounding: When the effects of multiple factors on a response cannot be separated.
  • Confounding makes it difficult or impossible to draw valid conclusions about the effect of each factor.

• t-Test for Two Samples: Paired

  • A paired difference test uses additional information about the sample that is not present in an ordinary unpaired testing situation, either to increase the statistical power or to reduce the effects of confounders.
  • This approach is sometimes used in observational studies to reduce or eliminate the effects of confounding factors.

• Mendelian Crosses

  • To prevent the pea plant that was receiving pollen from self-fertilizing and confounding his results, Mendel painstakingly removed all of the anthers from the plant's flowers before they had a chance to mature.

• Smallpox in Boston, 1721

  • (c) What are some potential confounding variables that might influence whether someone lived or died and also affect whether that person was inoculated?

• Correlation and Causation

  • It is important to not confound a correlation with a cause/effect relationship.

• Statistical Controls

  • These two controls, when both are successful, are usually sufficient to eliminate most potential confounding variables.
  • If the treatment group and the negative control both produce a positive result, it can be inferred that a confounding variable acted on the experiment, and the positive results are likely not due to the treatment.