Team 3: Chocolate Discussion by Abby Grace Drake

Instructions

bioee1780 — 2024-06-27 13:45:30 UTC

Be sure to read the paper "Chocolate with high cocoa content as a weight-loss accelerator" that is linked on Canvas.

Part of our job as scientists is to provide voluntary peer reviews of articles that have been submitted to journals to provide feedback on the scientific quality of the article. This week you will collaborate as a team of reviewers of the study on weight loss and chocolate.

Based on what you have learned about data analysis so far in the course can you suggest any ways to strengthen this paper? Is there any important information missing? What is the N? Are there other demographics to note? Was the statistical analysis done appropriately?

You do not need to wait until your team meeting to get started and you should return to the Padlet a couple of times through out the week to see what your teammates have said and to provide new comments.

I haven't provided question prompts this time. You should use text posts rather than videos this time unless you really want to use a video - go ahead. Photos illustrating your points are great too!

This assignment is worth 15 points. I'd like you each to make 3 posts at two different times this week (feel free to revisit more often) for 5pts each.

mz636 - numbers

2024-07-14 22:18:17 UTC

I may have missed it, but there does not seem to be a participant count. Assuming that the tests performed are accurate, the participant count is probably more than 5 for each group. To strengthen this paper I would mention the numbers for each group so that we can see both the sample size and if the groups are roughly evenly distributed

mz636 - demographics

2024-07-14 22:22:00 UTC

Another thing that i would do improve this paper is to show the different statistics about the people studied including better demographic data which would include age ranges, gender distribution, and any relevant health conditions(diabetes, IBS, etc.)

mz636- the actual statistic results of the study

2024-07-14 22:28:04 UTC

I would also like to know how this study was randomized, as that changes the validity of the results, too. I would also like to know more about how the missing data was handled, as parts of the study are self-reported, and human error would likely result in missing data, at least for the self-reported parts.

am3432 - Study participants

2024-07-14 22:39:28 UTC

One thing I noticed about this study was the way they selected their participants. They mentioned how they selected participants based on recruitment. Even though they intended for the study to be randomized, I believe that actively recruiting people doesn't keep the sample random. Additionally, they also made their sample two thirds females and one third male. I believe that if they hadn't done that, and just randomly selected individuals, the study would be much stronger.

am3432 - Sample Size

2024-07-14 22:52:48 UTC

One thing I noticed about this paper is they don't mention the exact sample size. Without knowing the sample size, it would be hard to conduct a t-test since knowing the sample size would allow for one of the conditions, normality, to be assessed. I think a way to strengthen this paper would be to list the sample size.

am3432 - Using Line Graphs

2024-07-14 23:01:37 UTC

One good thing I noticed about this paper was probably the usage of line graphs. Since the data appears to be continous, due to the study measuring weight change, using a line graph was the appropriate graph to visualize the data. Line graphs are meant for continous data.