Thesis Defense
Ezra Becker
UIC
Post Hoc Control Group Selection Methods
Abstract: When a researcher desires to evaluate the efficacy of a given treatment on a set of consumers, whenever possible the researcher first identifies a group of potential test subjects, and then assigns those test subjects to treatment and control groups via some randomized process before the experiment takes place. This tried-and-true method of random assignment between treatment and control has been a mainstay of experimental design since Ronald Fisher's work in the 1930s, and is hugely important in washing out the effects of unknown or otherwise uncontrollable sources of variation. However, researchers are often given a set of subjects who have already received a treatment, with no knowledge of how those subjects were selected for the treatment, and with no control group provided. Those researchers are then faced with the challenge of establishing an appropriate benchmark for evaluating the effects of the treatment when they have no say in the generation of the data, or when assembling any such benchmark a priori is either impractical, unethical, or impossible. This discussion centers on various methods to address this challenge, with an emphasis on a novel approach based on optimal design theory.
https://uic.zoom.us/j/9159158391
Tuesday November 28, 2023 at 1:00 PM in 1227 SEO