Question

a medical researcher wishes to investigate whether oil consumption in pregnant mothers and the subsequent development of asthma in their children, the researcher randomly assigned 736 pregnant women at 24 weeks of gestation to receive fish oil or a placebo (olive oil) daily, Neither the researcher nor the participants were aware of the group assignment during follow up for the first 3 years of the children lives, after which there was a 2year follow up period during which only the investigations were unaware of group assignment .

what type of data collection method would this scenario be considered?

A Anecdotal evidence.

B a controlled experiment

c a cluster sample

d an observational study

Answer 1

a medical researcher wishes to investigate whether oil consumption in pregnant mothers and the subsequent development of asthma in their children, the researcher randomly assigned 736 pregnant women at 24 weeks of gestation to receive fish oil or a placebo (olive oil) daily, Neither the researcher nor the participants were aware of the group assignment during follow up for the first 3 years of the children lives, after which there was a 2year follow up period during which only the investigations were unaware of group assignment .

what type of data collection method would this scenario be considered?

A Anecdotal evidence.

This is type of evidence is separate from statistical evidence. Where statistical is obtained from data eg. mean, anecdotal is based on people's testimony (what they feel) irrespective of the actual. Here no where it is mentioned tht people (mothers) had to give any testimonies.

B a controlled experiment

Control experiment is where there is one control group which is not given any treatment (placebo) and the other which is given the treatment and the results are compared to check whether the treatment does have any effect or not.

c a cluster sample

When people are put into groups and sampled together from 1 area and compared with others, it is cluster sampling. Since no clusters are there in this sample.

d an observational study

Observational is where the results are simply obtained based on what is observed without any treatment.