Detection bias

Analysis methods

• Detection bias occurs when a phenomenon is more likely to be observed for a particular set of study subjects. For instance, the syndemic involving obesity and diabetes may mean doctors are more likely to look for diabetes in obese patients than in thinner patients, leading to an inflation in diabetes among obese patients because of skewed detection efforts.
• In educational measurement, bias is defined as "Systematic errors in test content, test administration, and/or scoring procedures that can cause some test takers to get either lower or higher scores than their true ability would merit." The source of the bias is irrelevant to the trait the test is intended to measure.
• Observer bias arises when the researcher subconsciously influences the experiment due to cognitive bias where judgment may alter how an experiment is carried out / how results are recorded.