Session 7 – Data with a known recipe

A simulated dataset is the one place where the true answer is known in advance, which makes it the instrument for asking what a method recovers. Two sections of the module do the work that the term needs most: a null world, and a design tested before it is run.

Work through	What you do	Timing
Simulation as a method	Sections 1 and 2: the recipe stated in full, then simulate, fit, and find out how close the estimate comes to the value that was written into the data.	90 minutes
Simulation as a method	Sections 8 and 9: a world with no effect in it at all, and testing whether a design could detect the effect you are looking for before you go looking.	60 minutes

By the end of the session you have a recovery check on a parameter whose true value you set yourself, and a null world showing what your estimator returns when there is nothing there to find.