12 - Clue Selection as a Decision Problem

Summary

This chapter is the first of three in which we investigate how causal models can inform research design. In this chapter, we draw out the implications of the causal-model approach for clue-selection strategies, for figuring out which pieces of evidence are likely to be most informative about a question of interest. We demonstrate procedures for assessing which clues minimize expected posterior variance and how to construct an optimal decision tree for determining a dynamic clue-gathering strategy.