Evaluating Bias in Research
J. Ward
Lucy Rabenda-Bajkowska, Ph.D.
SOC 100: Introduction to Sociology
January 25, 2015

The first step in the student’s guide to research is to frame your research question. The process of formulating a research question has to be precise. Research projects come from many sources which can include empirical data. In the first step you also have to define your terms and how the terms will be measured. The student’s guide to research first step is to frame your research question. The question has to be precise if not it will mess up the entire project. You have to have many sources to base your question off of the information in order to have accurate information to form the question. Defining your terms and measurements will set up the research project by giving the sociologist a guide to work the question that has been presented. To frame your research question you have to be precise, have many sources, and have definitive terms and measurements if all of these things don’t work together you will not have an accurate question to start the project. In the article “As drug industry’s influence over research grows, so does the potential for bias” they explained how drug companies can make there drug look better in order for it to sell better. The New England Journal of Medicine features articles that the pharmaceutical companies and employees have influence over creating bias against the drugs. There is an assumption that there pharmaceutical companies have put in more money for the research of drugs over the years than the government’s National Institute of Health. When pharmaceutical companies are paying the money for drug research they can create bias which can be dangerous for people that use the drugs. The company executives in promoting there drug make the research look better, choose like-minded academics to do the work on the drug, and can make the statistics look in the pharmaceutical companies favor in order to make more money. The pharmaceutical companies are not required to present all there research data from the study of the drugs which creates another bias if they were required it would be a way of blocking bias against the drugs. A personal bias that the consumer has on the drug industry’s influence over research is not reporting symptoms or side effects when participating in the drug trials. If the consumer in the drug trial does not report how they are feeling on the drug and certain side effects that are occurring it can mess up the drug industries research. The consumer can also lie to help the pharmaceutical company get the drug on the market. When this happens it presents skewed data about how well the drug is working. If the pharmaceutical companies and the consumers are not honest about the drug research it can be very dangerous and unethical causing people to possible have long term health effects and even death can occur.