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Experimental design, Counterbalancing is sometimes referred to as the ABBA…
Experimental design
Independent groups
An independent groups design is when two separate groups of participants experience two different conditions of the experiment. If there are two levels of the independent variable (IV) this means that all participants experience tone level of the IV only.
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Matched pairs
One major issue with repeated pairs is the fact that when participants are tested more than once, and experience all conditions of the experiment, there is an increased likelihood they will become wise to the aims of the study.
To combat this, a happy medium is matched pairs. Here, participants are paired together on a variable or variables relevant to the experiment. For instance in a memory study participants might be matched on their IQ, as this might be a good indicator of their ability to recall information. The two participants with the first and second highest IQ scores would be paired together, as would the participants with the third and fourth highest, and so on. Then one participant from each pair would be allocated be a different condition of the experiment. This is an attempt to control for the confounding variable of participant variable and often necessitates the use of a pre-test if matching is to be effective.
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Counterbalancing
Counterbalancing is an attempt to control order effects in a repeated measures design. In counterbalancing, half the participants take part in condition A then B, and the other half take part in condition B then A
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Counterbalancing is sometimes referred to as the ABBA technique for obvious reasons i.e. where every participant does four trials, A,B,B then A.
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