Bitemark Analysis
- What kind of factors would you need to control for, and how would you accomplish that?
The factors you could control are: how much time is in between the analysis of the bitemark and the initial bite, material bitten into, and how the bitemark is analyzed. I would accomplish this by giving the analysts the bitemarks in question a designated amount of time after the initial bitemark (1 hour, 2 hours, etc.), using specific materials for the suspects to bite into, and designating a specific process and criteria that the analysts have to follow.
- What would be the treatments in your experiment?
The bitemark on the object/victim and the photographs of the bitemarks from the suspects.
- What would the units be?
The material, object, or victim that was bitten into and the bitemark taken from the suspect.
- What would the responses be? How would you measure those responses?
Whether the bitemarks were a match, not a match, or inconclusive.
- How would you utilize randomness within your experiment?
Having the bitemarks analyzed in a random order for each analyst.
- How would you achieve replication in your experiment?
Having multiple analysts look at the bitemarks.