Stage 4 – The question underneath the models

Analysts who look as though they disagree are often answering different questions, and the module makes that concrete by fitting each causal shape as well as describing it. Section 9 asks you to state an estimand for a question of your own, which is worth doing properly even though nobody else will read it.

Work through	What you do	Timing
Causal graphs	Sections 1 to 3: an arrow as a claim you are making, the three shapes that a path can take, and what conditioning on a collider does to an estimate.	60 minutes
Causal graphs	Sections 4 to 8: the EU-frames graph written as R formulas, the adjustment set that follows from it, what fixed effects cannot fix, and why the data will not draw the graph for you.	90 minutes
Causal graphs	Section 9: state an estimand for a question of your own, in three parts, and draw its graph.	45 minutes

By the end of the stage you have an estimand for a question of your own written in three parts, a graph that goes with it, and an adjustment set that you derived from that graph.