[LJ Idol 9: Week 5] Building Better Science

[cheshire23]

I would guess that most of us have heard that the large, double-blind, randomized controlled trial is supposed to be the best kind of research - if one is particularly fanatical on this topic, it is the ONLY kind of research worth acknowledging. Never mind the practicalities - sometimes "blinding" research subjects to what they are receiving is

Comments

[kajel]

I enjoy that you are always making me think. Nicely done.

[cheshire23]

Thanks very much, glad you enjoyed!

[n3m3sis43]

I LOVE RAT PARK. This may be the only entry about a literal rodent that I'm going to vote for this week.:D

[cheshire23]

I went through a few different topic ideas, but it had to be Rat Park in the end. I love it so!

[solstice_singer]

I battled with this all through school. I wanted to be a clinician, not a researcher. The required research classes were torture for me, even though I understand why research is necessary. My brain is not made for research and stats. So, I must depend on others to conduct solid research into the problems I was trained to treat. Not an ideal solution to be sure.

[cheshire23]

One of my MSW instructors said that as far as she could tell in both her practice and research experience, overall two things determined the effectiveness of any treatment: the clinician's rapport with the client, and whether the clinician believed what they were doing was effective. The actual modality was comparatively irrelevant.

[i_will_not_say]

This was an interesting read. You made me think!

[cheshire23]

Glad you enjoyed it. :)

[halfshellvenus]

I really liked this. It was cleanly presented as well as interesting, and it brought up some uncommon ideas. While we try to focus on isolating "interfering" factors out of an experiment, our artificial 'laboratory' may influence the results.

The Rat Park results had volumes to say about what drives people to and away from drugs and other unhealthy behaviors.

[cheshire23]

One of the things I learned in PhD research classes was the "wheel of research" - that there are different types of studies suitable at different phases of research, and this means there are plenty of times when random-assignment "true experimental design" is NOT appropriate at all.