Tag Archives: Critical appraisal

PMean: A book review of my first book

I wrote a book about nine years ago and interest in it has largely died down. Perhaps I should write a second edition. Anyway, I ran across a book review that I had not seen before. It was published in 2006, but I never noticed it until now. Sarah Boslaugh wrote the review and it got published in MAA Reviews (MAA stands for Mathematical Association of America). It says some nice things like my approach was “fresh.” Dr. Bosluagh also likes my web site, according to the review. Continue reading

Recommended: Improving Bioscience Research Reporting: The ARRIVE Guidelines for Reporting Animal Research

A lot of people have adapted and updated the CONSORT Guidelines to reporting clinical trials to handle other types of research. One of these adaptations is the ARRIVE guidelines for reporting animal research. Many of these guidelines follow CONSORT quite closely, but there are details, such as documenting the species and strain of the experimental animals and describing the housing conditions, that are specific to animal experiments. Continue reading

Recommended: In search of justification for the unpredictability paradox

This is a commentary on a 2011 Cochrane Review that found substantial differences between studies that were adequately randomized and those that were not adequately randomized. The direction of the difference was not predictable, however, meaning that there was not a consistent bias on average towards overstating the treatment effect or a consistent bias on average towards understating the treatment effect. This leads the authors of the Cochrane review to conclude that “the unpredictability of random allocation is the best protection against the unpredictability of the extent to which non-randomised studies may be biased.” The authors of the commentary provide a critique of this conclusion on several grounds. Continue reading