It is well established that, even after correction for differences in body heigh
ID: 3271778 • Letter: I
Question
It is well established that, even after correction for differences in body height, women have smaller lungs, narrower airways and weaker respiratory musculature than age-matched men^1. Recently, a study' was conducted to determine how women compensate for these disparities when they exercise. A research study at McGill University compared 25 men to 25 women, all of which were habitually active, non-smoking, and non-obese people between the ages of 19 and 39 years. Each completed a maximum of 0 to 10 while the researchers monitored the electrical activity level of the diaphragm using an electrode placed at the base of the esophagus by way of the nose. Not only did the women report greater shortness of breath, but their respiratory muscles were also working harder than the guy's were. Women, when compared to men, needed greater electrical activation of the diaphragm, in order to compensate for their biologically smaller lungs, airways and breathing muscles. What are the cases? When considering the variables 'biological sex' and 'breathlessness', which should be considered the explanatory and which should be considered the response? For each, decide if it is nominal, ordinal, discrete or continuous. Is this a randomized experiment or an observational study? If it is a randomized experiment, decide if it is a randomized comparative experiment or a matched-pairs experiment. Name at least one potential confounding factor in this study. Can we claim cause and effect based on the results from the study? To what population can we make inference based on this study?Explanation / Answer
Answer 4.
What is a cofounding factors/variables?
Confounding occurs when the experimental controls do not allow the experimenter to reasonably eliminate plausible alternative explanations for an observed relationship between independent and dependent variables.
In present case, the 'Breathlessness Rating' is a factor of ones psychological response to their physical stress (diaphragm stress here) which couldn't be separated or eliminated as an explanation for the relationship of breathlessness with gender. It might be possible that women has lesser capabilty of dealing with physically generated psychological stress than men and hence a rating difference would occur.
Answer 5.
The Cause-Effect that could be claimed goes like this:
Cause: The Gender of the volunteer is female
Effect: This volunteer showed a shorter lung size or breathlessness
Answer 6.
The above experiment applies to the women.
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