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Explain the primary statistical risk associated with conducting multiple unplanned exploratory analyses on a dataset, and state the two actions researchers should take when they discover unexpected, interesting relationships in their data.
Question: Explain the primary statistical risk associated with conducting multiple unplanned exploratory analyses on a dataset, and state the two actions researchers should take when they discover unexpected, interesting relationships in their data.
Sample answer: Conducting multiple unplanned exploratory analyses increases the risk of a Type error because it increases the probability of finding patterns that occur purely by chance. When unexpected but interesting relationships are found, researchers should explicitly explain in their report that these relationships are worthy of additional research, and they must treat these exploratory findings with caution, seeking to replicate them in subsequent studies.
Key points:
- Multiple unplanned exploratory analyses increase the risk of a Type error by finding chance patterns.
- Unexpected interesting findings should be explicitly reported as worthy of additional research.
- Exploratory findings must be treated with caution.
- Exploratory findings must be replicated in subsequent studies.
Rubric: A complete answer must: 1) Identify that multiple unplanned analyses increase the probability of finding chance patterns, raising the risk of a Type error. 2) State that the researcher should explicitly explain in the report that the unexpected relationships might be worthy of additional research. 3) State that the exploratory findings must be treated with caution and replicated in subsequent studies.
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Research Methods in Psychology - 4th American Edition @ KPU
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