Teen Challenge (A drug and alcohol residential treatment program) conducted an "Alumni Survey" to determine how successful their program was a treating drug addiction. They randomly selected 50 Alumni and mailed them a survey. 25 alumni responded with a completed survey. From this Teen Challenge concluded that their success rate at treating alcohol and drug addiction is 67%. Are there any problems with this conclusion?
2007-01-24 14:12:50 · 5 answers · asked by wahhaj93 1 in Social Science ➔ Psychology
Yeah, somebody needs to learn how to do percents.
2007-01-24 14:19:01 · answer #1 · answered by Dfire 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
problem is that non-responding 25 alumnis are more likely to remain addicts - too embarassed or stoned to respond, or moved without setting up mail forwarding.
Also, from a purely mathematical point of view, depending on where remaining 25 are, we can only say that success rate is between 33% and 83%. There are some papers and books by Charles Manski on that.
2007-01-24 14:21:48 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
You have to wonder why the other 50% didn't bother to reply. I'd say yes, there are problems with that conclusion. Maybe the half that didn't answer were all still on drugs. Maybe only 43% are. I think the missing surveys need to be accounted for.
2007-01-24 14:20:57 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Maybe the 25 alumni who did not respond were too drunk or drugged to do so.
2007-01-24 14:19:36 · answer #4 · answered by Cindy 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
you mean alchohol and drug addicts would be less likely to respond to the survey out of embarrassment or apathy? possibly.
2007-01-24 14:20:28 · answer #5 · answered by redundantredundancy 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋