Hawthorne Effect

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Just a note to say that BBC Radio Four has a programme next week on the Hawthorne Effect, which may be interesting to listen to given the amount of time we spend discussing the placebo effect and related issues with the design of experiments.

 

[Jeff Corey]

The Hawthorne Effect has been criticized on methodological grounds by a number of people, for example: http://www.nber.org/papers/w15016 "We find that existing descriptions of supposedly remarkable data patterns prove to be entirely fictional."
I wonder if the BBC program will cover them.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

The Hawthorne Effect has been criticized on methodological grounds by a number of people, for example: http://www.nber.org/papers/w15016 "We find that existing descriptions of supposedly remarkable data patterns prove to be entirely fictional."
I wonder if the BBC program will cover them.

I saw the negative commentary at Wikipedia.

I have to say it's not a topic I've really looked into before, except as a proxy for the common sense idea that subjects might alter their responses in response to the mere fact of being observed in a trial. I certainly didn't know there was that much hinterland to the story and it will be interesting to hear how the programme deals with it.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Here is the programme;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00lv0wx/Mind_Changers_Series_4_The_Hawthorne_Effect/