A farmer wants to determine if a new fertilizer gives her a better crop yield than her old fertilizer. She spreads the old fertilizer in field A, which has a brand new irrigation system. She spreads the new fertilizer in field B, which has an irrigation system that will be repaired next season. At the end of the growing season, field A has a better yield. The farmer determines that her old fertilizer is the better fertilizer. This an example of which of the following?
cultural bias
personal bias
data presentation error
experimental bias
*experimental bias
agree
This is an example of experimental bias.
Experimental bias occurs when there are flaws or biases in the way an experiment or study is conducted, leading to misleading or inaccurate results. In this case, the farmer's decision to use field A with the brand new irrigation system and field B with the irrigation system that will be repaired next season introduces a potential bias that could affect the crop yields.
The bias stems from the unequal treatment of the two fields, where field A has the advantage of the new irrigation system, which could influence the crop yield. This bias could skew the results and lead to the farmer concluding that the old fertilizer is the better fertilizer, even though the difference in crop yields could be attributed to the irrigation system instead.
To avoid experimental bias in this scenario, the farmer could have used the same irrigation system for both fields to ensure fair and equal treatment. Additionally, randomizing the allocation of the fertilizers to the fields would help reduce potential bias further.