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Why hide group assignments from people running an experiment?

Knowing which group is expected to improve can affect how people behave or how ambiguous results are judged. Blinding limits access to that information for specified people, though it cannot remove every source of bias.

4–5 min

Questions you could explore

  • Who needs to be unaware for the particular bias being considered?
  • When would concealing the intervention be difficult?

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Your topic carries over. Record up to 2½ minutes, depending on your plan.

Media and information

What makes a historical source primary?

A diary and a history book stand in different relationships to the past, but neither is automatically beyond question. What counts as a primary source also depends on what you are trying to find out.

3–5 min
Media and information

Following a web claim back to its source

Five webpages repeating the same claim may lead back to one original report. Lateral reading looks beyond an unfamiliar page to investigate its publisher; following links upstream helps reveal where the evidence began.

8–10 min
Media and information

What can a photo’s metadata actually prove?

An image file may carry a date, camera information, or a caption alongside its pixels. Those details can be useful clues, but some can be changed or removed as a file is edited and shared.

4–5 min
Why hide group assignments from people running an experiment? | Speech Topic | speaking.app