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Installing air filters in classrooms has surprisingly large educational benefits (2020)

(www.vox.com)
308 points tangjurine | 3 comments | 31 Mar 25 00:22 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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Aurornis ◴[31 Mar 25 01:49 UTC] No.43529859[source]▶
I'm all for installing air filters in classrooms for a number of reasons, but I also think the extreme results from this study aren't going to hold up to further research.

From the paper:

> To do so, I leverage a unique setting arising from the largest gas leak in United States history, whereby the offending gas company installed air filters in every classroom, office and common area for all schools within five miles of the leak (but not beyond). This variation allows me to compare student achievement in schools receiving air filters relative to those that did not using a spatial regression discontinuity design.

In other words, the paper looked at test scores at different schools in different areas on different years and assumed that the only change was the air filters. Anyone who has worked with school kids knows that the variations between classes from year to year can be extreme, as can differences produced by different teachers or even school policies.

Again, I think air filtration is great indoors, but expecting test scores to improve dramatically like this is not realistic. This feels like another extremely exaggerated health claim, like past claims made about fish oil supplements. Fish oil was briefly thought to have extreme positive health benefits from a number of very small studies like this, but as sample sizes became larger and studies became higher quality, most of the beneficial effects disappeared.

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mmooss ◴[31 Mar 25 02:29 UTC] No.43530174[source]▶
Based on your comment, the effect could be larger as well as smaller.

All research is met on HN by people who know better and will tell you why it's flawed. There isn't a greater collection of expertise in the history of the world than on HN.

Edit: I meant to add: What value can we find in this research? It wasn't published as scripture, the perfect answer to all our problems. It's one study of some interesting events and data; what can we get out of it?

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bawolff ◴[31 Mar 25 02:42 UTC] No.43530276[source]▶
Science succeeds when people lean towards the side of cynicism instead of optimism. Scientific research should be read critically.
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mmooss ◴[31 Mar 25 02:47 UTC] No.43530320[source]▶
Critical thinking and skepticism are good, but much of what happens on HN is not that.

Thinking critically includes, most of all, finding value - you need to think critically (and skeptically) to avoid assigning value to things that don't have it, but you must find value. The goal is to build knowledge - just like the study author needs to find knowledge among flawed data, you must find knowledge among flawed studies - and they are all flawed, of course.

Focusing on the flaws and trying to shoot down everything is just craven recreation.

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1. Aurornis ◴[31 Mar 25 04:47 UTC] No.43531176[source]▶
> you need to think critically (and skeptically) to avoid assigning value to things that don't have it, but you must find value.

This isn’t critical thinking.

This is toxic positivity.

It’s okay to admit that some studies don’t have value to add. If you don’t accept this, you’re going to be tricked by a lot of people trying to get your attention with bad data.

Being able (and willing!) to filter out bad sources, even when they say something you want to hear, is a critically important skill. If you force yourself and others to find something positive about everything then you’re a dream come true to purveyors of low quality or even deliberate misinfo.

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2. mmooss ◴[31 Mar 25 04:49 UTC] No.43531192[source]▶
lol

> some studies

It's almost every study on HN, not some studies, which you'd understand if you read my comment.

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3. jval43 ◴[31 Mar 25 05:48 UTC] No.43531528[source]▶
Yes because most studies that end on up HN are there because they were reported on somewhere as news.

This usually happens in usually these cases:

1. when a paper is extremely good and it's results are groundbreaking, or

2. when a study itself claims it has groundbreaking results, or

3. when it's a regular study that's gotten some great marketing/promotion e.g. by their university.

The case of 1. is extremely rare, and even when everyone believed the results and they were peer reviewed by a reputable paper like Science, some of them turned out to be academic fraud that was later retracted.

Most studies that pop up on HN are of types 2. and 3. That's just because otherwise they would not get news attention.

But most studies in general are in category 4: the ones an academic or professional would read going about their daily business / research. These range from terrible, to OK, to really great, but 99% never make the news.

As a (former) academic, I've read lots of papers and like in real life it's usually the people (papers) that get attention who scream the loudest. There are some gems too of course, and it's right to not ignore anything.

But in my personal experience and over time, I've been very right to be very sceptical once a result turns up in the news because of the 3 ways it can get there.

This is amplified even more so with papers that base their results / outcome purely on statistics, such as most experimental studies done. These derive their results from the statistics (sample size, experiment design, etc) so their power and the probability of their result being correct (what the authors say) it directly coupled.