Google.
"An observational study observes individuals and measures variables of interest but does not attempt to influence the responses"
Question that made me have an argument with my professor and made me create this post:
A quality control specialist compares the output from a machine with a new lubricant to the out of machines with the old lubricant. Is that an experiment or an observational study?
answer of previous question: "Experiment because they are currently comparing the outputs (but the observation has not been done yet)." https://quizlet.com/118070925/math-test-11-15-corrections-flash-cards/#:~:text=A%20quality%20control%20specialist%20compares,has%20not%20been%20done%20yet).
My question is:
If in the last question the answer was "Experiment" not because eny-thing was being modify but because the (observation/experiment/ or whatever it really is) was being "currently comparing" then tell me if i'm crazy or not but not all observational studies are all comparing reasults in live time? then shouden't the definition change to "An observational study observes individuals and measures variables of interest (THAT ALREADY FINISHED/ENDED) but did not attempt to influence in the responses"
or
"An observational study observes individuals with-out making any comparasions because just "observing individuals and measuring variables of interest with-out attempt to influence the responses" is not enought, because, comparising mustn't occur otherwise it would transform into an experiment"
to better expose my claims i'll make an example:
A CVS manager with really good sales, was contacted by his old-best friend who is also a CVS manager but this one with really bad sales. Because the second CVS has bad sales, he decided to ask the one with good sales (which is also his friend) for some sales advises. By coincidence or not the good sales CVS manager, happends to have a son that works as a statistics/data expert. Now, even though the son is disposed to help his father's freind, he is not disposed to make the travel to the other CVS because it is too far away. The son, then decides that because both stores are CVS stores he will conduct an "observational study" about "best products to showcase in front of a CVS store to boost sales" with his own father's store as data source, and then he will send the results to the other store in hoppes of helping to boost sales. When he started the "observational study", Even though data was being collected weekly, he decided that the "observational study" should last for one month.(Here comes the most importan part of this example pleas read with care)The father very aware of his best-friend trouble, and noticing that even though the "observational study" is supposed to last for one moth, data results of last week just came one day ago, so he decided to share those results with his freind and then he told him "the best product to showcase infront of your store could be *****", and he kept doing that same thing every week until the end of the "observational study"
So, were you able to notice my concerns?
If I ask you to rate the above example as "observational study" or "experiment" what would you tell me?
1.-"observational study" because it was intended to be "observational" since the beginning, and even though comparisons between products and results were produced weekly and the other store did in fact took action based on those weekly results. The actions or changes based on that data were not taken by the subject matter store, in fact no change or intervention was introduced to the subject matter store (which was the one with the good sales)
2.-"experiment" just because "comparisons between products and results were produced weekly" in other words, the father change the "observational study " to "experiment" by "currently comparing the outputs" and giving that feedback to his friend even though the "observational study" was still in progress. as it is stablished in the answerd of the question that originated all this post "answer of previous question is "Experiment because they are currently comparing the outputs (but the observation has not been done yet).""
3.- it depends of the current time-space of the question. Meaning, if it is still in progress then it would be "experiment" because comparisiongs and actions are being taken, but when it finishes(when the month passes) it would become "observational study" because no intervention or changes were made to the subject matter
4.-it depends on the perspective, if you look at the whole question it is "observational study", but if you look at it by something that has not being finish it becomes an "experiment" meaning that it is an "observational study" with "experiments" inside of it?
