control groups
Untreated comparison cohorts
Control groups are subjects in an experiment who receive no treatment or a standard treatment, serving as a baseline against which to measure the effect of the experimental intervention.
If a drug trial shows improvement in treated patients but not in the control group, the drug likely caused the change.
The study assigned half the participants to a control group that received a placebo.
Introducing chance systematically
- blindingPainfully intense light
- double-blindNeither tester nor tested knows
- experimental designStructured plan for research
- sample sizeQuantity of observations taken
baseline · comparison · allocation · stratification · matching · crossover · selection criteria · enrollment
Inactive therapeutic substitute
- sugar pillInactive substitute for medicine
- waitlistRoster of pending hopefuls
Unlikely due to chance
- outcomesFinal results achieved
- variablesChangeable elements in equations
- data collectionSystematic accumulation of facts
- confoundingCausing surprise or confusion
validity · reliability · reproducibility · endpoints · measurement · null hypothesis · variance
randomization
Introducing chance systematically
- blindingPainfully intense light
- double-blindNeither tester nor tested knows
- experimental designStructured plan for research
sample size · baseline · comparison · allocation · stratification · matching · crossover · selection criteria · enrollment · recruitment
placebo
Inactive therapeutic substitute
- sugar pillInactive substitute for medicine
- waitlistRoster of pending hopefuls
statistical significance
Unlikely due to chance
- outcomesFinal results achieved
- variablesChangeable elements in equations
- data collectionSystematic accumulation of facts
confounding · validity · reliability · reproducibility · endpoints · measurement · null hypothesis · variance
- Psychology ResearchStanford prison experiment, Pavlov's dogs, marshmallow test, classical conditioning, operant conditioning
- research ethicsresearch ethics, bioethics, ethics board, ethics training, fabrication
- research gapsblind spots
- experimentsexperiment, experiments, test, tests, trials
- scientific methodexperiment, theory, data, hypothesis, observation
- animal testinglab mice, animal testing, lab rats, vivisection, experimentation
group, control, controller, controlled, controlling, controls, uncontrolled, controllable, controllers