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Basic Principles of Experimental Designs

Professor Fisher outlines three key principles of experimental design: replication, randomization, and local control. The document details various experimental designs, including informal designs like before-and-after and after-only with control, as well as formal designs such as completely randomized, randomized block, and factorial designs. Researchers must choose the appropriate design for their project before data collection and analysis.

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Bashiru Mansaray
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124 views5 pages

Basic Principles of Experimental Designs

Professor Fisher outlines three key principles of experimental design: replication, randomization, and local control. The document details various experimental designs, including informal designs like before-and-after and after-only with control, as well as formal designs such as completely randomized, randomized block, and factorial designs. Researchers must choose the appropriate design for their project before data collection and analysis.

Uploaded by

Bashiru Mansaray
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Basic principles of experimental designs

Professor Fisher has enumerated three principles of experimental design:


1. The Principle of Replication;
2. The Principle of Randomization;
3. Principle of Local Control
Important Experimental Designs
a) Informal experimental designs:
i. Before-and-after without control design. single test group or area
ii. After-only with control design. two groups or areas (test area and control area)
iii. Before-and-after with control design. two areas are selected and the dependent
variable is measured in both areas for an identical period before the treatment
i. Before-and-after without control design:
In such a design, a single test group or area is selected and the dependent variable is
measured before the introduction of the treatment. The treatment is then introduced and the
dependent variable is measured again after the treatment has been introduced. The effect of
the treatment would be equal to the level of the phenomena after the treatment minus the
level of the phenomenon before the treatment. The design can be represented as follows:

The main difficulty of such a design is that with time considerable variations may be
observed in its treatment effect.
ii. After-only with control design

iii. Before-and-after with control design


In this design, two areas are selected and the dependent variable is measured in both areas for
an identical period before the treatment. The treatment is then introduced into the test area
only, and the dependent variable is measured in both for an identical period after the
induction of the treatment. The treatment effect is determined by subtracting the change in
the dependent variable in the control area from the change in the dependent variable in the
test area. The design can be shown in the following way:
Two-group simple randomized design:
In a two two-group simple randomized design, the population is defined and then from the
population, a sample is selected randomly. A further requirement of this design is that, after
the items have been randomly selected from the population, the item is randomly assigned to
the experimental and control group. Such random assignment of items to two groups is
technically described as the principle of randomization. Thus, this design yields two groups
as representatives of the population. See the diagram below:
b) Formal experimental designs:
i. Completely randomized Design (C.R. Design) Simple design:
Involves only two principles viz., the principle of replication and the principle of
randomization of experimental designs. (one-way ANOVA)
a. Two-group simple randomized design: Population Randomly selected, Sample
Randomly assigned Experimental group Treatment A & Control group treatment B
(both are independent variable)
b. Random replications design: The limitation of the two-group randomized design is
usually eliminated within the random replications design
ii. Randomized block design (R.B. Design):
In the R.B. design, the principle of local control can be applied along with the other
two principles of experimental designs. In the R.B. design, subjects are first divided
into groups, known as blocks, such that within each group the subjects are relatively
homogeneous concerning some selected variable. (two-way ANOVA) *
Let’s illustrate the R.B. design with the help of an example. Suppose four different forms of a
standardized test in statistics were given to each of five students (selected one from each of
the five I.Q. blocks)

iii. Latin square design (L.S. Design): is an experimental design very frequently used in
agricultural research. (two-way ANOVA) *

iv. Factorial designs:


a. Simple factorial designs: Simple factorial design may either be a 2 × 2 simple
factorial design, or it may be, say, 3 × 4 or 5 × 3 or the like type of simple
factorial design.
The data obtained in the case of two (2X2)
Simple factorial studies may be given in the figure below:

The 2 X 2 design need not be restricted in the manner explained above i.e., having one
experimental variable and one control variable, but it may also be of the type having two
experiment variables or two control variables. For example, a college teacher compared the
effect of the class size as well as the introduction of the new instrument technique on the
learning of research methodology. For this purpose, he conducted a study using a 2X 2
simple factorial design. His design would be illustrated below:
4 X 3 Simple Factorial Design
The 4 X 3 model of a simple factorial design includes four treatments viz: A, B, C, and D of
the experimental variable and three levels viz: I, II, III, of the control variable and has 12
different cells as shown below.
This shows that a 2 X 2 simple factorial design can be generalized to any number of
treatments and levels. Accordingly, we can name it such and such (- x -) design. In

b. Complex factorial designs:


 Experiments with more than two factors at a time involve the use of complex factorial
designs.
 the design used will be termed 2 × 2 × 2 complex factorial design which will contain a
total of eight cells

Conclusion
 There are several research designs and the researcher must decide in advance of collection
and analysis of data as to which design would prove to be more appropriate for his
research project.

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