Control Group
Randomly allocate subjects to a control group to control for spurious effects
The control group is a set of subjects who do everything the same but don't receive the treatment, e. g. in medical research they get a placebo sugar pill not the new drug. This controls for spurious influences (if subjects are randomly allocated). Note: Don't let subjects choose to be in the control group or not. A control group is important where subjects know they are being observed, e. g. In the "Hawthorne effect" experimenters found that painting a room a brighter color improved work rate, but later found painting it dark had the same effect! What improved the work rate was not the painting but being observed by researchers. A control group avoids such problems.
Tags: Valid, Quantitative, Method
Example(s)
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