| Description |
1 online resource (podcast (18 min., 46 sec.)) |
| Series |
Social Science Bites |
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Social Science Bites
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| Summary |
About this Podcast, Andrew Leigh would take a daily a multivitamin, he says, until he learned that a randomized controlled trial (RCT) found no increase in lifespan linked to taking them. So he stopped. Leigh is also an unrepentant "randomista," which is what he calls researchers who use RCTs to tackle thorny issues of public concern. For Leigh, the proper definition of a randomista is "someone who believes we can find answers to important questions by tossing a coin and putting people into a treatment and control group, comparing the outcome, and then using the randomization to get a true causal effect."In this podcast Leigh attests to how RCTs have been used for years in drug testing, but are increasingly being used in business, crime prevention, education, and social science. Indeed, these days RCTs are used as much to kill bad policies as they are to save lives. Leigh offers a litany of popular social programs that actual research demonstrated had the opposite effect of what they intended. There are, of course, success stories, too, such as the various "nudge" units at the government level. Leigh cites drug courts and restorative justice as two public safety wins endorsed by RCTs |
| Notes |
XML content and online resource (SAGE, viewed on April 14, 2020) |
| Subject |
Social sciences -- Research.
|
|
Sampling (Statistics)
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Social sciences -- Methodology.
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Podcasts.
|
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Podcasts.
|
|
Sampling (Statistics)
|
|
Social sciences -- Methodology.
|
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Social sciences -- Research.
|
| Form |
Streaming audio
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| Author |
Edmonds, David, 1964- host, interviewer.
|
| ISBN |
9781529736014 |
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1529736013 |
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