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A scientific control is an experiment or observation designed to minimize the effects of variables other than the independent variable (i.e. confounding variables). [1] This increases the reliability of the results, often through a comparison between control measurements and the other measurements.
An experiment must also control the possible confounding factors—any factors that would mar the accuracy or repeatability of the experiment or the ability to interpret the results. Confounding is commonly eliminated through scientific controls and/or, in randomized experiments , through random assignment .
Random assignment or random placement is an experimental technique for assigning human participants or animal subjects to different groups in an experiment (e.g., a treatment group versus a control group) using randomization, such as by a chance procedure (e.g., flipping a coin) or a random number generator. [1]
Operant conditioning chambers have become common in a variety of research disciplines especially in animal learning. The chambers design allows for easy monitoring of the animal and provides a space to manipulate certain behaviours. This controlled environment may allow for research and experimentation which cannot be performed in the field.
Control groups are a way of eliminating the possibility of incidental treatments being the cause of measured effects. The incidental treatments are controlled for. Compare treatment groups. A treatment that is only the absence of the manipulation being studied is simply one of the treatments and not a control, though it is now common to refer ...
A variable in an experiment which is held constant in order to assess the relationship between multiple variables [a], is a control variable. [2] [3] A control variable is an element that is not changed throughout an experiment because its unchanging state allows better understanding of the relationship between the other variables being tested.
An active placebo was used in the Marsh Chapel Experiment, a blinded study in which the experimental group received the psychedelic substance psilocybin while the control group received a large dose of niacin, a substance that produces noticeable physical effects intended to lead the control subjects to believe they had received the ...
However, others argue that, even though replicability is difficult, if the results of the experiment are important then there a larger chance that the experiment will get replicated. As well, field experiments can adopt a "stepped-wedge" design that will eventually give the entire sample access to the intervention on different timing schedules ...