Expert Opinion and Informed Opinion

1
Expert Opinion andInformed Opinion

• Opinions based on training and evidence

2
What is expert opinion?

• It is developed through much training and
  extensive knowledge in a special field.
• For example, a physician develops an expert
  opinion on disease because he has studied
  medicine intensively for four years after
  graduating with a four-year bachelors degree
  from a university.
• But he is not an expert about mental health,
  finance, or religion!

3
Who has truly expert opinion?

• Persons with doctorates study four years beyond
  the bachelors degree to become experts in a
  specialty.
• Experts specialize in areas such as
• Science
• Law
• Religion
• Finance

4
Whos somewhat expert?

• Persons with masters degrees study two years
  beyond the bachelors and are somewhat
  expert in a specialty.
• Persons with technical or trade skills may be
  considered expert workers.
• These skilled workers include
• Mechanics
• Electricians
• Chefs

5
Who is not really expert?

• Persons with associate and bachelors degrees are
  non-specialized and not considered to be experts
  in any field.
• Workers who are not especially trained experts
  then include
• Teachers, but not professors
• Secretaries or general office workers
• Lower level nurses, but not higher ones

6
What is informed opinion?

• It is developed by gathering and analyzing
  evidence.
• Students gather evidence on topics to write
  research papers.
• Police study clues to identify who has committed
  crimes.
• Mechanics check out cars to see where they are
  broken.
• Students, police, and mechanics can have informed
  opinions by studying the facts.

7
Is it expert opinion or informed opinion?

• Shoppers who have searched for and carefully
  selected the best car.
• A doctors professional diagnosis of an illness
  or a condition.
• Presentation by an linguistics' professor on an
  aspect of learning a language.
• A friends advice on how to obtain a better job.

8
Fact, expert opinion or informed opinion?

• Researcher Steven Pinker finds that humans are
  born with the instinct to learn language.
• Pinker points out that children master
  pronunciation before they reach puberty.
• Pinker supports the puberty-pronunciation
  statement with much observation.

9
Fact, expert opinion or informed opinion?

• In modern life, the most rationed commodity in
  the home is time," observes syndicated columnist
  Suzanne Fields.
• The children of today's overextended parents are
  starving from a lack of parental time, attention
  and affection.
• Parents today spend 40 percent less time with
  their children than did parents in 1965.

10
Fact, expert opinion or informed opinion?

• Often the father works a day job and the mother
  works part-time in the evenings or on weekends.
• Sociologist Steven Nock shows that employed
  mothers of preschool children on average spend
  less than half as much time with their children
  as full-time mothers at home.

11
Fact, expert opinion or informed opinion?

• Children in single-parent homes usually receive
  less parental attention and supervision than
  other children.
• Robinson's data show that, on average, single
  mothers spend 33 percent less time each week than
  married mothers in primary child-care activities
  such as dressing, feeding, chauffeuring, talking,
  playing, or helping with homework.

12
Fact, expert opinion or informed opinion?

• One study found that preschool children of single
  mothers sleep two fewer hours a night on average
  than their counterparts in two parent homes, in
  part because harried mothers find it difficult to
  maintain a consistent bedtime routine.

13
Fact, expert opinion or informed opinion?

• "Increasingly, Americans are pursuing a selfish
  individualism that is promoted by TV and that is
  inconsistent with strong families and strong
  communities," writes University of North Carolina
  sociologist Peter Uhlenberg.

14
Fact, expert opinion or informed opinion?

• Psychiatrist Robert Coles calls this the "teddy
  bear syndrome"
• Some of the frenzied need of children to have
  possessions isn't only a function of the ads they
  see on TV. It's a function of their hunger for
  what they aren't getting their parents' time.

15
Fact, expert opinion or informed opinion?

• Americans believe "parents having less time to
  spend with their families" is the most important
  reason for the family's decline in our society,
  according to a recent survey.

16
Fact, expert opinion or informed opinion?

• When 1,500 schoolchildren were asked, "What do
  you think makes a happy family?" social scientist
  Nick Stinnett report that children "did not list
  money, cars, fine homes, or televisions." Instead
  the answer most frequently offered was "doing
  things together."

17
Review of opinion

• Expert opinion is developed through much training
  and extensive knowledge in a special field.
• Informed opinion is developed by gathering and
  analyzing evidence.