At 10:50 AM -0400 6/29/09, David W. Fenton wrote:
The results of a statistical study of people's behavior is no[t] PROSCRIPTIVE, but DESCRIPTIVE. That's is, it doesn't say what people SHOULD do, but describes how people behave.
All very true, but let's not forget the dirty little secret of statistical studies. The selection of subjects is crucial to the final result, and it's VERY easy to skew the results in advance by careful selection of subjects. (Similarly, the medieval Church required courses in logic as a part of education (and probably still does), because they understood perfectly that logic can be used to prove anything you want as long as you control all the initial assumptions!!) Select subjects at random and you get the bell-shaped curve. Select any other way and you have skewing built in.
Statistical analysis loses validity to the extent that subject selection is not completely random (Statistics 101!), because the statistical tools ASSUME random selection and therefore project their results back to the specific population sampled and NOT to the general population. (Also Statistics 101: the results of most statistical studies map accurately only to college Sophomores, because the subjects of most statistical studies, especially in the early days, were college Sophomores!!)
So did MS and Apple sample the entire population at random? I doubt it. That would have given them results with validity but very low applicability because a vast majority of the general population are, in fact, computer illiterate (or "naive," which is a much nicer word!), even though WE might not think so. No, they probably would have sought out experienced computer users, although not necessarily users of specific programs if the experimental design followed acceptable guidelines. So right there, that limits the universe to which the results apply AND it skews the results unless they were clever enough to control for the ways their subjects already used their keyboards and mice. And I'd also bet that they allowed the subjects to self-select themselves as well (by putting up notices or recruiting in locations where they could expect to find users), and that's definitely a no-no but it's the easy way out.
Several years ago there was a European study of perfect pitch which claimed to find that certain areas of the brain were active in people who had perfect pitch and not in people who did not. Sounds valid, right? But it wasn't, because they recruited their subjects by going to a music conservatory and asking for people who claimed to have perfect pitch! In other words, the experimental team were studying a human attribute that they themselves could not define, did not understand, and did not use preliminary screening tests for, and their subjects were self-selected! The fact that they DID get results makes it an interesting study, but only a preliminary one since they had no control subjects.
So yes, I can question the validity of the studies you cite, BUT on the basis of their probable subject selection rather than on any other aspect, and I can question it without studying the full experimental reports (which I did for the perfect pitch article), but questioning it does not mean rejecting it. And questioning is a basic component of scientific method.
I fully understand and appreciate your comments, David, but also those who raise questions for their own reasons. For myself, I studied keyboard (it was called "typing" in those days and used real typewriters!) in high school and taught myself to use the mouse in middle age, and I do whatever is comfortable for ME, as I imagine we all do.
John -- John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music Virginia Tech Department of Music College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[email protected]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html "We never play anything the same way once." Shelly Manne's definition of jazz musicians. _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
