Define: skepticism
- an attitude of doubt or disposition to incredulity either in general or toward a particular object
Define: confirmation bias
tendency to believe things that you want to be true
Define: placebo
a treatment for a disease or condition which is deliberately ineffective
Define: double blind study
a study where neither the participants nor the experimenters know who is receiving a particular treatment; this type of study removes confirmation bias
Define: fallacy
- incorrect argument in logic that undermines the argument’s validity (example: penguins are black and white; some old tv shows are black and white; therefore, some penguins are old tv shows)
Define: meta-analyses
a statistical analysis that combines the results of multiple scientific studies for better statistical power and ID patterns
Define: systematic reviews of randomised control trials (RTC)
- review of literature that identifies and synthesizes all high quality research evidence relevant to that question
Define: epidemiological and observational studies (EOS)
- study that compares the health of populations as they present themselves without any manipulation
- example: comparing 2 different populations (exercisers vs non exercisers) and observe any CORRELATIONS that exist between groups and variables of interests (heart disease, etc). We will never claim CAUSATION.
Explain the concept: correlation is not causation
- correlation: relationship between 2 ideas/ facts (A relates to B)
- causation: A causes B to occur
Define the scientific method; Explain the steps in the scientific method (5-6; depends)
- process for experimentation that is used to explore observations and answer questions STEPS 1. observation 2. question 3. hypothesis 4. experiment 5. accept/ reject hyopthesis IF you reject the hypothesis 6. form a new hypothesis and experiment onwards
Explain the difference between observational studies and experiments; explain the main concept our prof stressed when it comes to observational studies
- observational study: nonexperimental investigation of the effects caused by a treatment (basically collect data and infer based on what is collected); many reported results in the media are observational studies
- experiment: method of APPLYING treatments to a group and recording the effects
- CONCEPT: you cannot find PROOF in an observational study. You cannot base decision making SOLELY on an observation
Explain the 6 important guidelines you should follow if you were to do an epidemiology and observational study
- the association between exercise and health must be repeatable (reliable)
- the association between exercise and health must
be strong - the association between exercise and health must
be logical - all studies should start with a logical hypothesis
- any dose-response relationship (biological gradient) must be logical
- no other obvious causation should be able to
affect the results
What is the problem of a systems approach to group training?
- 1 approach to training will not be effective for everyone
Explain the single subject experiment; what is important to remember about this type of experiment (2)?
- type of study where you design an exercise regime for someone and systematically measure the results before and after a period of time to see if your goal is reached.
- you can only claim that program has worked for that individual, not everyone. Also you cannot infer causality because there is no control group to compare to.
Quiz yourself: Which of these would constitute the best evidence?:
- systemic reviews of large numbers of RTC
- single large RTC
- observational studies
- epidemiological studies
- strong beliefs
systemic reviews of large numbers of RTC
