STUDY PARTICIPANTS NEEDED FOR DOG BEHAVIOR STUDY

ncotta01

• Doberman Pinschers (with lick granuloma)

Or are you only looking for dogs from home environments?  Perhaps they would extend your information to adopters.

ncotta01

Participants are required to fill out a survey about their dog’s behavior

Tricky, tricky. To rely purely on observations of non professional behaviorists and trainers (aka regular dog owners) is a good way to have big gap on the accuracy of the study. After this, some people will slam the "study" in front of others claiming that "science says so". I have a lot of friends that know nothing regarding dog behavior, body language and dog training. If they get this survey, their "rookie" opinion will count towards the results.

Not really the best way to conduct a reliable study IMO

There are definitely concerns regarding collecting data via untrained observers, and there's a paper or two written on it, but nonetheless, there are ways to validate the observations from untrained observers. It annoys me no end that untrained 'internet experts' continually feel the need to point out flaws in scientific studies as if the scientists doing the studies are not aware of them. Sometimes I truly wonder what people think I do with my time. I can assure you it's not sitting around dreaming up new ways to skew data or build flaws into my research. Generally when someone proudly and self-importantly tells me why my study is flawed it is something I researched and addressed in the first month of background research. Gee, I didn't realise this most obvious of flaws that has been discussed at length in the literature. Obviously the months of full-time literature review I did cannot possibly match the wealth of your lifetime knowledge on dogs and you are terribly smart for so quickly pointing out where I have gone wrong. I love it when people point out less obvious flaws that present real tricky problems. It shows they understand what I have been explaining and are thinking it through. And is it so hard to frame it as a question to at least give the researcher a modicum of respect and acknowledgement of all their hard work while giving them a chance to share how they might have handled this problem? My survey has a set of questions on trainability. Every time some smart alek tells me those questions are useless or entirely dependent on how the dog is trained I want to slap them. Could you not have just asked why I put them in? D'ya think that possibly I could be aware of that and therefore must have a good reason to have them in? Bah.

*deep breath*

Honestly, I find it rude when people that do not have a science degree and experience in research feel the need to inform me that my research is flawed. It diminishes all the work I have put into it, the weeks I have spent mulling over unsolvable problems, and the extensive input from more experienced researchers. And it's annoying! They are just showing me how ignorant they are. I can't even be bothered responding. Obviously they already know they know more than I do. Frame it as a question, though, and I will be delighted to answer. I love talking about my research. I hate defending my research from people that seem to have no idea what has gone into it. So maybe think about ASKING Nicole why she has chosen the methods she has before you tell her it was a bad choice. Remember that she will have spent months researching the topic already and years before that learning about the scientific method. 

Rant over. 

I find funny that people who rant in forums think they are the only ones with a college degree and experience in research. Granted there are college degrees that use more research than others but that does not mean there is no college degree that didn't need to do researches on a pretty good scale.

If i go out doing a research on public's opinion regarding a topic then I'm using the correct subject for my research; aka I want to know what people think regardless if they are "right or wrong"

If I go out and I want to do a research on mission system software and avionic by asking regular people around only because the fact that they own a computer then I should be ready to face the accuracy of my research based on their opinion. Do they really know about mission system software and avionic? Maybe i know a lot about it, do they just because they check facebook every day?

A lot of people out there still think that if a dog wags his tail he is friendly. We know that is not always the case, should i include the opinion of those people in my dog body language research?

"Genetic underpinnings of compulsive behavior", let's ask grandma to save time, that sounds about right. Or maybe, she should take all the time needed and do the observations herself as she is the expert.

Spiritdogs dog spends time at the Canine Cognition Lab at Harvard to see if dogs have a sense of fairness, that is scientists doing first person observation on dog's behavior, should they ask grandma living at the other side of the country what does she think?

 That kind of went to hell in a handbasket.  Quickly.

DougB

 That kind of went to hell in a handbasket.  Quickly.

miranadobe

DougB

 That kind of went to hell in a handbasket.  Quickly.

oh, Doug, this is tame. Others of us have been around long enough to see what a real handbasket looks like. 

Agree with Paige.

espencer

I find funny that people who rant in forums think they are the only ones with a college degree and experience in research. Granted there are college degrees that use more research than others but that does not mean there is no college degree that didn't need to do researches on a pretty good scale.

Obviously I'm not the only one either on internet forums or anywhere else that has a college degree in science and research experience, and I really could not care less. I would just like to be given the benefit of the doubt that perhaps I do actually know what I'm doing and I do actually have a good reason for the research decisions I have made and will be happy to share them if someone bothered to ask me rather than just flat out telling me how flawed my research is. I love how because I get cross about people assuming I do absolutely no background research suddenly I am an academic snob. If you have a college degree and research experience, then bloody well show it.

espencer

A lot of people out there still think that if a dog wags his tail he is friendly. We know that is not always the case, should i include the opinion of those people in my dog body language research?

"Genetic underpinnings of compulsive behavior", let's ask grandma to save time, that sounds about right. Or maybe, she should take all the time needed and do the observations herself as she is the expert.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. Why don't you ask the person doing the research why they are asking dog owners, what they are asking, what they hope to get out of it, and how they plan to validate their findings rather than assuming that because it's not being done in the purest of research traditions it is not going to be valid. I sure as hell could answer every one of those questions about my survey. But no one aside from my supervisors have ever asked me. Including the folks that thought to point out to me that my questions were flawed. Actually, they are not, and if you had spent several months researching it like I did, you would know that. You raise valid concerns, but in a rude way by assuming they have not already been addressed.

I'm not taking sides here but it is not unnatural to question research. That is what research and theories are all about fundamentally.

My company pays grants to some universities to research a variety of topics. Usually, the university proposes the topics, we say yes or no, they perform their research and present the results. The results are usually taken for truth as these folks are supposed to be experts in their field (and research in general). Policies are sometimes made based on the research / theories presented. Just recently, I was asked to sit in and give input on the progress that has been made on a particular research project. After listening to what the researches had to say, asking them questions about their data and so forth, I requested that the project be thrown out. Of course this is not a popular opinion and if you were on the other side of the table, I expect you would respond much like you did here. However, I'm an expert in the "real world" field that this research is involved in. I have run the state-wide program for several years and what they were proposing was just not sound. There were so many outside influences at play there was / is no way to correlate the 2 things they were trying to prove. No. Way. You could not set up a control to run any type of tests and no reliable data exists that you could pull from. If I allow this research to go forward, flawed as it is, it will eventually end up on some misinformed policy makers desk and will have impacts on millions of people.

I am not saying that these researches did not do their homework or spend a lot of hours coming up with their initial idea. What I am saying though, is that based on real world experience, their theory and research is flawed.

I guess what I am saying is that if your are going to do research, you need to be willing to listen to criticism and opposing ideas without getting too emotionally involved. Outside input can be helpful.

Jewlieee

I'm really confused. How did this become about you? Is this your research project?

It is not about me. I felt bad for the OP. I know what it's like. I thought by relating my experiences and how frustrating it can be it might make people think twice before criticising research they don't have all the facts on.

I'm not taking sides here but it is not unnatural to question research.

Espencer didn't 'question', he criticised without even bothering to first question. That is my gripe. Does he know for a fact that the OP does not have a plan to validate their questionnaire in some way?

I can take all the questioning anyone and everyone cares to throw at me, and any researcher should be the same. It is my job to answer them and I love it. Interesting points are often raised, and different perspectives explored. It is useful. Criticism from people that know the background of your project (because they have bothered to ask questions to make sure they fully understand) is also useful. Critical, in fact. Criticism without establishing all the facts is not very useful and it gets really annoying. We love talking about our projects. Any excuse, and an interested audience is a blessing. But man, please give us the benefit of the doubt and just ASK before making any assumptions about the validity of our chosen methods. It's only polite. A lot of preliminary work goes into these things and I know I for one am delighted to talk about it. So please, assume that holds for all researchers and JUST ASK. 

Jewlieee

I'm really confused. How did this become about you? Is this your research project?

Agree

corvus

Does he know for a fact that the OP does not have a plan to validate their questionnaire in some way?

ncotta01

Participants are required to fill out a survey about their dog’s behavior and a blood sample is needed.  A visit to Tufts is not required.

How can the OP validate opinions from someone she will never meet based on observations of non professionals about dogs she will never see? How can she validate "grandma's opinion" at the other side of the country if grandma does not know anything about dog behavior?

espencer

How can the OP validate opinions from someone she will never meet based on observations of non professionals about dogs she will never see? How can she validate "grandma's opinion" at the other side of the country if grandma does not know anything about dog behavior?

Now we're getting somewhere.

There are a couple of ways this can be done, but it depends on the questions. I don't know what the questions are. Do you? Presumably we are talking about things like tail-chasing, here. Most people can tell when their dog is chasing its tail a lot.

Anyway, one way to validate the survey is to test whether, if the questions are answered by two different people that both know the dog, they are answered in much the same way i.e. Is there agreement between observers? Plenty of purists don't like that method much because for all we know we're all agreeing on what is essentially a human construct, but if there are high levels of agreement we can at least say that we are measuring something, even if we're not sure exactly what it is. Another way is to take a sample of dogs and take behavioural observations yourself and then get untrained people to answer the survey and see if the survey can indeed identify the presence of the behaviours it is supposed to identify. It may not even matter whether grandma knows anything about dog behaviour. If you ask the right questions grandma need only notice her dog chases shadows or some such and how often. If you spell it out, e.g. "My dog chases shadows.... never, seldom, sometimes, often, always" grandma doesn't need to know anything about dog behaviour, and you can use some fun statistics to account for the fact that "never" through to "always" is not a metric scale. Often if you have a lot of respondents it doesn't matter if a few don't give accurate answers. It just matters that most do seeing as you're looking for broad patterns, and if you have selected your questions well and done all your preliminary work, that should not be a problem. It shouldn't anyway if you plan to validate with behavioural observations taken by the same person/people.

corvus

"My dog chases shadows.... never, seldom, sometimes, often, always"

Oh ok i see what you are saying, regardless of the cause, the point would be to know if they do or not. If 80 out of 100 GSDs owners answer "often" then they will think that they are on to something, they will take the blood samples and see if they find similarities in the DNA. If they dont find anything different than regular GSDs then is not genetic. The objective would be to know if GSDs have an "easyness" to chase their tails regardless if they are bored, hyperactive, etc. Just like hounds have an "easyness" to bark when they are bored vs. other breeds that dig instead to fight boredom due to genetics.

 I don't know exactly what the OP plans to do, but probably something more like that, yes.