A family preservation program director helps design a study that evaluates the effectiveness of her program to keep children living with their abusive parents by providing the families with daily home visits by social workers. She expects the evaluation to show a dramatic reduction in reported child abuse incidents. Instead, the results show an increase in reported child abuse incidents. The director then concludes that the program was undoubtedly effective, reasoning that there really could not possibly have been an increase in actual abuse due to her program, just an increase in reportage of abuse due to closer monitoring in the daily home visits. The director is committing the error of
A) illogical reasoning.
B) ex post facto hypothesizing.
C) premature closure of inquiry.
D) selective observation.
E) mystification.

Question

A family preservation program director helps design a study that evaluates the effectiveness of her program to keep children living with their abusive parents by providing the families with daily home visits by social workers. She expects the evaluation to show a dramatic reduction in reported child abuse incidents. Instead, the results show an increase in reported child abuse incidents. The director then concludes that the program was undoubtedly effective, reasoning that there really could not possibly have been an increase in actual abuse due to her program, just an increase in reportage of abuse due to closer monitoring in the daily home visits. The director is committing the error of​
A) ​illogical reasoning.
B) ​ex post facto hypothesizing.
C) ​premature closure of inquiry.
D) ​selective observation.
E) ​mystification.

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The director is engaging in ex post facto hypothesizing, which means coming up with a hypothesis after the results are known, to fit the unexpected outcome. This is a logical fallacy because it does not adhere to the scientific method of forming a hypothesis before conducting the research.

A Family Preservation Program Director Helps Design a Study That