The Illusion of Control

When doing research you may feel you have control of your participants and your study. However, I would like you to keep in mind the photo of Jed that I am attaching, he is quite sure he is controlling the remote, and no one moves without him being involved. Yet, the reality is his control is minimal, such is the case with research. Despite all of your hard work and efforts to have things run smoothly, there will be occasions when participants do the unexpected. Some examples are quitting the study midway through, not reading questions carefully, misrepresenting themselves, or lying. 

What can you do about these things? Actually, there is very little that you can do directly; all you can do is be aware of the issues and the illusion of control. When you analyze your results and get some strange data, remember the reality, that people do the unexpected and discuss the issue with your committee. They can make have suggestions on sorting it out. 

Next time, I will discuss some end of quarter thoughts. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Would you like to be a guest writer? Send me your ideas! leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu