Question

1.) Which critical thinking issue is most relevant to the following situation:

A college psychology professor uses advertisments to ask people to access a website to fill out a survey for his research project.

• self-interest study
• assumed accuracy from overly precise numbers
• voluntary response bias
• nonresponse bias or missing data
• perceived lack of anonnymity
• loaded or leading question

2.) Identify the type of observational study

The incidence rate of smoking among people who have died from heart disease is determined by investigating past medical records

• Retrospective
• Prospective
• Cross-Sectional

Answer 1

1.

Voluntary response bias is most relevant in the given case.

This type of bias occurs when sampling units are self selected volunteers. Here, people who participate in the survey are the ones who volunteered to do so.

2.

The type of observational study in the given case is retrospective study.

In retrospective study, we look at past data of the group under study and look for vulnerability to risk in relation to the disease under study that is already established at the start of the study.

Here, heart disease is already established and we look for smoking cases among them in their past medical reports, making it a retrospective study.