Final Flashcards
Logic most closely associated with the scientific method
Abductive
What best defines the scientific method?
Proposes useful or predictive claims about the world and tests them by experience
Hallmark global research study of the scientific method
Interventional study
What does random allocation in large research studies minimize?
Confounders
Least likely to be a part of exploratory data analysis
Confidence intervals
2 major types of data analysis in quantitative research studies: confirmatory and exploratory. What best characterizes the aim of exploratory data analysis?
Present the data in open-minded ways that reveal what the data might mean
Probabilistic thinking comes into play in biomedicine most frequently when?
Two or more factors have a conditional relationship
2 major concepts commonly used in biomedical statistics
Central tendency and error analysis
Research design is biased under what conditions? (Review)
Design systematically favors one or some study outcomes over other outcomes
Generally the most informative measure of error in a data set
Confidence interval
Observational research studies lead to:
Correlations
What makes interventional research studies so powerful?
Order-dependence of intervention and outcome
Hypothesis-driven research cannot be?
Qualitative
Common passageway from qualitative to quantitative studies:
Propositions from qualitative study are refined into hypotheses for quantitative study
Hypothesis generation is best characterized by
Imaginative combining of thoughts to explain a problem
What makes a hypothesis potentially innovative rather than simply new?
Hypothesis supported by test outcomes has implications far beyond originating field
Simply pointing out a high correlation between selected factors are too frequently interpreted to be in a cause and effect relationship. This can be due to our minds being predisposed to?
Predict the future given the presence of one of the two factors in question
Factors A and B are known to occur independently of each other in each of the 50 US states. You observe factors A and B to be highly correlated in California but independent of each other in Iowa. Which of the following would be the most likely explanation for your observations?
A and B in California are each caused by C, but C is absent in Iowa
In interventional studies, the intervention is presumed to be…?
Cause
The best clinical research design is the Randomized Control Trial (RCT). At the heart of RCTs is an intervention and an outcome of interest. What is the logical role of the intervention in RCTs?
Presence of the intervention is a predictor of the outcome
Baseline rate is determined in what design part of a research study? (Review)
Control
The gold standard in research design = Randomized Control Trial (RCT). The design features to real with confounding factors that might contribute to the outcome. In an RCT, what gets randomly allocated?
Intervention & the control
Synonyms for causes and effects in research studies
Explanatory & response variables
At best, the findings of an observational study are
Necessary but not sufficient to establish causal relationships
What is a statistical factor altering precision in parameter measures?
Stochastic noise
Central tendency = a statistical analysis that determines a single or point value as representative of an entire data distribution. What is a advantage and a disadvantage of the mean versus the median as a measure of central tendency of a data set?
Easily calculated as arithmetic average and more sensitive to extreme values
A great way to visualize both the central tendency and spread in a data set?
Five number summary
Research studies are complex with lots of design, performance, and outcome parts. In published biomedical research studies, what is ultimately the most important outcome?
Effect size
What is a statistic to analyze variation in measures of 2 categorical variables?
Chi-square
All research except qualitative studies generates results on a single group or multiple groups of events, objects, or subjects that can be quantified. When analyzing sets of quantitative data, what is usually the most important?
Differences between means
Statistical analysis of a categorical study of two groups needs how many cell counts of data?
4
Sensitivity and specificity are key concepts in understanding false discovery rates in screening tests. These tests can be in the context of basic science assays or clinical diagnostic tests. Which concept refers to true positives and which concept to true negatives?
Sensitivity refers to the true positives and specificity refers to the true negatives
What do a coin toss, dice throw, and dealt cards from a shuffled deck share?
The specific outcome is unknowable
Probabilistic thinking is very important to evidence-based medicine on an everyday level. This way of decision making relies on the strength to which two or more features are correlated or independent of one another. If 2 independent events each has a probability of 0.7, what is most likely?
Both events will occur together less than half the time
Student’s t-test is a simple statistical test to determine the likelihood that…?
Random variability linked to your measures can account for your research study results
Statistical tests are not generally intuitive which leads to a lot of confusion as to what these tests tell us about research measures. The concept and meaning of values of p-values are not well understood generally, including by investigators who use p-values routinely, but must be if we are to decrease the rate at which we publish research studies that turn out to be false. A student’s t-test in a study giving a p-value of 0.001 means…
Difference between means has a 1 in 1000 chance of being random variability
What best conveys the magnitude of the outcome of interest important to the research study?
Mean differences or correlations
What concept is now used to indicate how likely the mean is what you think it is? (Review)
Confidence interval
What combined with the p-value can indicate how likely your hypothesis is false?
Prior probability from other studies
What accounts for the assessment that most claimed research findings are false?
Most experiments are under-powered and p-values acceptable for publication too low/high(?)
What do interventional studies research?
Cause of an outcome of interest
Aim of an intervention research design is consistent with…?
When a factor is removed from the study, the outcome goes away
Critical advantage of an RCT study over all other designs is…?
Confounding factors influence on outcome differences across groups is minimized
Exclusion and inclusion criteria aim to optimize the possibility that…?
Intervention and control groups begin with the same prognosis
It’s often key to design and perform case-control studies so…?
Past conditions of exposure to harm are similar for cases and control subjects
A major limitation of case-control studies of decades-long exposure harm
Recall bias with subjects
What distinguishes a cohort from a case-control study?
Outcome is absent at the beginning of a cohort study
In a cohort study design, what are the minimal cohorts and their outcomes?
Exposed and not exposed at start and disease and not disease at end