Week 1: Week 1 – Class Discussion
Apply statistical concepts to your daily life.
Does regular exercise reduce the risk of a heart attack? Here are two ways to study this question.
Example Study 1: A researcher finds 2,000 men over 40 who exercise regularly and have not had heart attacks. She matches each with a similar man who does not exercise regularly, and she follows both groups for five years.
Example Study 2: Another researcher finds 4,000 men over 40 who have not had heart attacks and are willing to participate in a study. She assigns 2,000 of them into a regular program of supervised exercise. The other 2,000 continued their usual habits. The researcher follows both groups for five years.
Review the example studies above and answer the following questions in your main post:
After reviewing the examples above, create your own study that will determine if regular exercise reduces the risk of a heart attack.
Is your study more similar to example study one or example study two? Why?
Given that example study one is an observational study and example study two is an experiment, is your study an observational study or an experimental study? Explain.
Why does the second way of studying the question (the experiment), give more useful information about whether exercise reduces the risk of heart attacks?
What population do you think the researcher wants information about in example study two? What was the sample in this case? Does your study examine the same sample? Explain.
