MATH 534 Week 8 Discussion

The descriptive statistics summarize data from a sample, for example, demographicprofiles. Whenever there are several groups, it is useful to provide the descriptivestatistics by group and for the overall sample. This gives a visual impression of thecomparabilityofthe groupsin termoftheir baseline characteristics.Itis notnecessaryto report statistical tests and P-values in such a summary because the main concern isthe comparability of the participants (which reflects the sampling), not the populations.AccordingtoClinicalCenterAmericanResearchHospital,theethicalguidelinesinplacetoday were primarily a response to past abuses, the most notorious of which in Americawas an experiment in Tuskegee, Alabama, in which treatment was withheld from 400African American men with syphilis so that scientists could study the course of thedisease. Various ethical guidelines were developed in the 20th century in response tosuchstudies.