By Matthew Victor Black (Pennsylvania State University)
Information
As part of a study investigating critical thinking about data, I designed classroom activities for an introductory statistics course at a large, diverse, public university in the Northeastern United States. Typical course enrollment is between 17 and 22 students. One of these activities involved examining an advertisement for a weight loss supplement. At the time, the makers of this advertisement were charged by the FDA with false advertising due to issues with a debunked clinical study, which was described and cited in the advertisement. Some issues with the study were the inclusion of customers as participants in the weight loss study, a failure to randomly assign participants to experimental groups, as well as issues with non-response and incorrect response biases. We watched the advertisement as a class, and I provided the students with a transcript of the advertisement. Students had the opportunity to discuss their initial reactions to the advertisement in partner groups and with myself. These conversations were sound recorded. Next, I provided the students with the abstract for the clinical study. I asked them to further evaluate the claims made in the advertisement using what they learned from the abstract. Many students noted discrepancies between experimental design and the conclusions. Finally, I provided the students with excerpts from R. Barker Bausell, a noted biostatistician who debunked the study on the popular ABC show 20/20. The students were asked to write a letter to the makers of the advertisement, evaluating the claims from the advertisement and justifying their ideas.