Bioethics - Assignment Example

Download file to see previous pages... Weight measurements will be taken, and these can be compared with results from the literature about what is healthy and normal for the particular breed of dog. Secondly, energy levels will be measured, again based upon what is normal for the breed. This will be subjective and assessed by trainers who do not know which diet the puppies are taken, to make sure there is no bias. Finally, blood pressure measurements will be taken weekly throughout the course of the experiment to ensure that the puppies are healthy and to avoid ethical problems of the experiment.
Another important part of designing a scientific experiment is to work out the participants, or the ‘sample’. Scientific studies work best with larger sample sizes to eliminate bias (Shannon & Kockler, 2009). When working with dogs, it can be beneficial to use a variety of breeds to ensure that the hypothesis and results can be applied to all dogs. Therefore it was decided that 100 dogs would be tested, 50 on each diet. 25 different breeds (or combination of breeds in mongrels) will be used, so that 2 of each breed will be taking part in each diet group.
It is important to randomize the dogs that are chosen to go on each diet. Grouping each breed as a four and then randomly assigning them a diet is the best way of doing this (Shannon & Kockler, 2009). It is important that each one follows the diet strictly for the four weeks of the experiment, as any deviation from this could cause a false result. This means the dogs must be observed at all times to ensure that they do not eat any food from another dog’s meal. Each dog must also have the same amount of exercise and be housed in the same size kennel as the other dogs from that breed to ensure fairness when measuring the results. Differences in exercise could cause a major difference in the weight measurement particularly, and this would be a confounding variable.
Each dog would also have to take their meals at ...Download file to see next pagesRead More