Question

c) Suggest some possible confounding factors 6. California is is to reduce the recidivism rate- the percentage who will be back in prison wi release. The program involves several months of boot camp*+military-style basi evaluating a new program to rehabilitate prisoners before their release; the object c training with ve ry strict discipline. Admission to the program is voluntary. According to a prison spokesman Thos a) W What is the control group? e who complete boot camp are less likely to return to prison than other inmates" hat is the treatment group in the prison spokesman's comparison? b) Is the prison spokesman's comparison based on an observational study or a randomized controlled experiment? c) True or False: the data show that boot camp worked.

Answer 1

a.)

Treatment group - Prisoners who volunteer and complete the boot camp.

Control group - Prisoners who did not attend the boot camp.

b.)

The prison spokesman’s comparison is based on an observational study.

It is not an randomized controlled experiment because the prisoners were not choosen randomly to attend the boot camp.

c.

False

We can not conclude that the boot camp worked.

Reasons are:

1. The prisoners who attended boot camp were volunteers and not randomly allocated.

2. Also there is a possibility of presence of some other factor (confounding factors) which was not recorded.

For example, it is possible that prisoners who volunteered to attend were already committed to bring a change in life and not commit any more crime. So such factors can cause bias in the outcomes.

Hence, we can not conclude that the boot camp worked.