Description:

"Can Clinicians Detect Meaningful Treatment Effects in Their Practice?"

by Larry V. Hedges, Board of Trustees Professor of Statistics and Social Policy, Co-Director of the Center for Statistics for Evidence-Based Policy and Practice, and IPR Fellow

Abstract: Medical clinicians sometimes publicly advocate for treatments that they discover in their own practice. Similarly, the idea of teacher-researchers who discover how to improve their own practice has often been advocated. Yet the scientific community, in both medicine and education, has made major investments in large-scale studies to investigate the effects of treatments. One might ask whether these investments are necessary given the less expensive paradigm of research within practice. In this talk, Hedges will explore the limitations that statistical uncertainty imposes on knowledge that can be gained from practice. He argues that the magnitude of effects that can plausibly be identified from practice is either unrealistically large or quite narrow in scope. This suggests more useful foci for clinicians than establishing causal effects of treatments.

This event is part of the Fay Lomax Cook Winter 2024 Colloquium Series, where IPR researchers from around the University share their latest policy-relevant research.

Please note all colloquia this quarter will be held in-person only.