Observational Study & Experimental Design

You will create an example of an observational study and an experiment that could be built around a topic that
you have chosen. Topic must be submitted & approved in advance.

You may use any resource you would like to help you answer the questions below. I will give your group
feedback and the opportunity to make corrections before the final grade is entered.

Group Members: ​I’Mani Barnes and Mikhaila Doyle

Topic: ​Seafood Allergies

​ igh School students in Atlanta

Population: H

Observational Study/Survey

1. What is a problem or a question that could be answered about your topic by your population
through an observational study?
Are High School students in Atlanta more likely to acquire seafood allergies in their teenage years rather than
early years of life?

2. Propose an observational study that could answer this problem or question using the given
population.

High School Students surveyed in Atlanta will be asked when they accumulated their seafood allergies- early
years in life (5 years and under) or teenage years. Non-allergy participants will be excluded from the sample.

3. What would be the best type of sample to use for your study? Why? Are there any shortcomings to
this type of sample?

We would use a stratified sample by highschool of 200 students to acquire a sample for our study. Use
50% of high school students with allergies from each stratum.

Shortcomings to simple random sample: Homeschooled students will not be included in the study.

4. What would be an inadequate way to collect information for this study? Explain why.

It would be inadequate to go to a seafood restaurant in Atlanta to collect information/data, as it would be less

likely to find high school students in Smyrna here to study.
 5. What sort of data would you expect to collect from your study? How could you analyze it? Would
the resulting analysis include parameters or statistics? How do you know?

Qualitative: categorical data- asking high school students in sample ​if ​they accumulated allergies in early years or
in teenage years

Using this data, we will calculate the percentages of students who accumulated allergies in their early years of life
and in their teenage years.

Resulting analysis includes statistics because we’re observing the proportion of students who accumulated
allergies in their early years of life in the sample. Using this information, we can find the population parameter.

Randomized Experiment

6. What is a problem or question that could be answered about your topic by your population through
an experiment?

Do different doses of a new medication influence how long an allergic reaction lasts?

7. Propose an experiment that could answer this problem or question using the given population.

We will test our question by choosing to give three randomized groups the new medication, while labeling one
group our control group and not giving them any medication. Following the experiment, we will analyze our
results and draw conclusions on if our medication impacts length of reaction.

8. Identify the explanatory variable and response variable in your experiment.

Explanatory: various dosages of new medication

Response: length of allergic reaction

9. Identify any lurking (confounding) variables that could interfere with this study.

Weight, age, and additional underlying health conditions could impact the results of our study.

10. Describe the population, sample and experimental units relevant to your problem/question.

Population: ​people with allergies in the US

Sample: ​people with allergies in various US cities

Experimental Unit​: people in the study

 11. Is it necessary to receive informed consent for your experiment? If so, what information must be
shared with participants? Are there any details that should be omitted? Explain.

Yes, we need to receive consent from the people we’re testing. We’ll inform patients that we’ll have a previously
tested and cleared medication on standby if reaction gets out of control.

12. Is it possible or appropriate to use blinding in this study? Explain.

Yes, a placebo will be administered to persons in our control group. Our placebo will appear to be a copy of the
medication in-testing.

13. Explain the treatments that will be used and how they will be assigned to the experimental units
using sampling techniques.

We will assign different dosages of our medication in-testing to 4 different randomized groups (3 groups provided
with different dosages and 1 control group).

14. What type of data would you expect to receive in this experiment? How would you analyze it?

Quantitative continuous data---analyze in a data table.

We will time the reaction to determine its length: from the onset of a reaction to when the reaction stops
(rate of reaction goes to 0). We are expecting a multitude of reactions including respiratory problems,
inflammation, and gut reactions.

15. Describe how blinding and placebos may be used to counter the power of suggestion.

Persons in testing will be unaware that they’re not actually receiving the medication.