Referenced from lesson Threats to Validity

The animal shelter wanted to find out what kind of food to buy for their animals. They took a random sample of two animals and the food they eat, and they found that spider and rabbit food was by far the most popular cuisine!

 

Explain why sampling just two animals can result in unreliable conclusions about what kind of food is needed.

 

 

 A volunteer opens the shelter in the morning and walks all the dogs. At mid-day, another volunteer feeds all the dogs and walks them again. In the evening, a third volunteer walks the dogs a final time and closes the shelter. The volunteers report that the dogs are much friendlier and more active at mid-day, so the shelter staff assume the second volunteer must be better with animals than the others.

 

What are some possible threats to the validity of this conclusion?

These materials were developed partly through support of the National Science Foundation, (awards 1042210, 1535276, 1648684, and 1738598). CCbadge Bootstrap:Data Science by Emmanuel Schanzer, Nancy Pfenning, Emma Youndtsmith, Jennifer Poole, Shriram Krishnamurthi, Joe Politz, Ben Lerner, Flannery Denny, and Dorai Sitaram with help from Eric Allatta and Joy Straub is licensed under a Creative Commons 4.0 Unported License. Based on a work at www.BootstrapWorld.org. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available by contacting schanzer@BootstrapWorld.org.