Using DAGs to aid causal inference in field research

Using DAGs to aid causal inference in field research

Thursday July 30, 2020, 1PM-3PM (Online & Face2Face - see below).

The Future of Work Institute’s mission is to promote thriving at work in the digital age. To succeed, we must show that the interventions we recommend have a causal effect on worker thriving. And yet, in field studies, establishing that any ‘X’ causes ‘Y’ is extremely difficult. In a previous workshop, Pat Dunlop discussed how either failing to condition on confounding variables, or conditioning on collider variables will introduce bias to causal estimates. In this workshop, Pat and Stijn Masschelein, from UWA, will introduce attendees to the latest tool, developed by Prof. Judea Pearl and his team, for aiding causal inference, namely Directed Acyclic Graphs (or DAGs), and show how DAGs can be used to help identify variables you must measure, variables you must control for, variables you must not control for, and importantly, what DAGs can teach us about mediation analysis. This workshop will include a recap, a “DAGs 101” presentation with a tutorial, and some simulations designed to illustrate what can go wrong if our assumptions are wrong, but we don’t know it. We recommend watching the video of Pat’s first causality workshop if you were not there. Delivering this workshop is part of our own learning journeys as we navigate this difficult topic!

Presenters

• Patrick Dunlop is an   Associate Professor at Curtin Future of Work Institute. He obtained his PhD   at the University of Western Australia in 2012. His research interests   include personnel recruitment, assessment, and selection. He also dabbles in   research methods.
• Stijn Masschelein is   a Senior Lecturer at the University of Western Australia. He obtained his PhD   at Leuven University in 2010. Stijn's main research interests are the role of   performance measures and informal information on incentives and decision   making.

Venue and RSVP

This session will be run both via live stream, over the web, AND face to face at 78 Murray Street, in Level, 2, Room 212. Due to social distancing restrictions, spaces in the face to face session are extremely limited. To reserve your spot, and to obtain the link to the stream, please contact Diane.Garnham@curtin.edu.au as soon as possible with your preference.