Unfortunately, because I used proprietary survey data/a proprietary R package to run this analysis, I don’t think I’ll be able to share the data and code.
Ah, interesting! What package? I’ve never heard of something like that before. Usually in the cold, mechanical heart of every R package is the deep desire to be used and shared as far as possible. If it’s just someone’s personal interface code, why not use something more publicly available? Can you write out your basic script in pseudocode (or just math/words?)? Especially the model and MCMC specification bits?
Sure, in an ideal world, software would all be free for everyone; alas, we do not live in such a world :p. I used the proprietary package because it did exactly what I needed and doesn’t require writing STAN code or anything myself. I’d rather not re-invent the wheel. I felt the tradeoff of transparency for efficiency and confidence in its accuracy was worth it, especially since I wouldn’t be able to share the data either way (such are the costs of getting these questions on a 1200 person survey without paying a substantial amount).
But the basic model was just a multilevel binomial model predicting the dependent variable using the treatments and questions asked earlier in the survey as controls.
Of course (though wheel reinvention can be super helpful educationally), but there are great free public R packages that interface to STAN (I use “rethinking” for my hierarchical Bayesian regression needs but I think Rstan would work, too), so going with someone’s unnamed, private code isn’t necessary imo. How much did the survey cost (was it a lot longer than the included google doc, then? e.g. Did you have screening questions to make sure people read the paragraph?). And model+mcmc specification can have lots of fiddly bits that can easily lead us astray, I’d say
Yeah, the survey was a lot longer. Typically general public surveys will cost over 10 dollars a complete, so getting 1200 cases for a survey like this can cost thousands of dollars.
I agree that model specification can be tricky, which is a reason I felt it well worth it to use the proprietary software I had access to that has been thoroughly vetted and code reviewed and is used frequently to run similar analyses rather than trying to construct my own.
I did not make sure people read the paragraph. I discussed the issue a bit in my discussion section, but one way a web survey might understate the effect is if people would pay closer attention and respond better to a friend delivering the message. OTOH, surveys do have some potentual vulnerability to the hawthorne effect, though that didn’t seem to express itself in the donations question.
Unfortunately, because I used proprietary survey data/a proprietary R package to run this analysis, I don’t think I’ll be able to share the data and code.
Ah, interesting! What package? I’ve never heard of something like that before. Usually in the cold, mechanical heart of every R package is the deep desire to be used and shared as far as possible. If it’s just someone’s personal interface code, why not use something more publicly available? Can you write out your basic script in pseudocode (or just math/words?)? Especially the model and MCMC specification bits?
Sure, in an ideal world, software would all be free for everyone; alas, we do not live in such a world :p. I used the proprietary package because it did exactly what I needed and doesn’t require writing STAN code or anything myself. I’d rather not re-invent the wheel. I felt the tradeoff of transparency for efficiency and confidence in its accuracy was worth it, especially since I wouldn’t be able to share the data either way (such are the costs of getting these questions on a 1200 person survey without paying a substantial amount).
But the basic model was just a multilevel binomial model predicting the dependent variable using the treatments and questions asked earlier in the survey as controls.
Of course (though wheel reinvention can be super helpful educationally), but there are great free public R packages that interface to STAN (I use “rethinking” for my hierarchical Bayesian regression needs but I think Rstan would work, too), so going with someone’s unnamed, private code isn’t necessary imo. How much did the survey cost (was it a lot longer than the included google doc, then? e.g. Did you have screening questions to make sure people read the paragraph?). And model+mcmc specification can have lots of fiddly bits that can easily lead us astray, I’d say
Yeah, the survey was a lot longer. Typically general public surveys will cost over 10 dollars a complete, so getting 1200 cases for a survey like this can cost thousands of dollars.
I agree that model specification can be tricky, which is a reason I felt it well worth it to use the proprietary software I had access to that has been thoroughly vetted and code reviewed and is used frequently to run similar analyses rather than trying to construct my own.
I did not make sure people read the paragraph. I discussed the issue a bit in my discussion section, but one way a web survey might understate the effect is if people would pay closer attention and respond better to a friend delivering the message. OTOH, surveys do have some potentual vulnerability to the hawthorne effect, though that didn’t seem to express itself in the donations question.