So, I saw Vox’s article on how air filters create huge educational gains; I’m particularly surprised that indoor air quality (actually, indoor environmental conditions) is kinda neglected everywhere (except, maybe, in dagerous jobs). But then I saw this (convincing) critique of the underlying paper.
It seems to me that this is a suitable case for a blind RCT: you could install fake air filters in order to control for placebo effects, etc. But then I googled a little bit… and I haven’t found significant studies using blind RCTs in social sciences and similar cases. I wonder why; at least for these cases, it doesn’t seem more unethical or harder to do it than in medical trials.
So, I saw Vox’s article on how air filters create huge educational gains; I’m particularly surprised that indoor air quality (actually, indoor environmental conditions) is kinda neglected everywhere (except, maybe, in dagerous jobs). But then I saw this (convincing) critique of the underlying paper.
It seems to me that this is a suitable case for a blind RCT: you could install fake air filters in order to control for placebo effects, etc. But then I googled a little bit… and I haven’t found significant studies using blind RCTs in social sciences and similar cases. I wonder why; at least for these cases, it doesn’t seem more unethical or harder to do it than in medical trials.