title: An experiment in Beer-tasting.
abstract: An experiment in beer tasting among 18 first year pre-clinical students showed that only two appeared to be able to discriminate light from bitter ale correctly. As a whole the group did worse than would be expected by guessing at random on each tasting trial. Some psychological biases, one possibly as a result of the design, are indicated by the results and a possible remedy suggested. The danger of acceptance of ‘views’ in clinical medicine without confirmatory experimental evidence was brought out by the students own failure to confirm a hypothesis (or ‘view’) that they believed before hand to be beyond question.
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Gardner
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001515:Beer; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012107:Research Design; D013223:Statistics as Topic / Q000193:education*; D013337:Students, Medical; D013649:Taste; D055697:Taste Perception; D013663:Teaching / Q000379:methods*