Definition:Experimental Design
Definition
Let us want to set up a series of comparative experiments to compare the effects of administering treatments of some kind, for example:
- different medicines for a of patients
- different fertilizers for plots of land
- different lubricants for machines.
An experimental design is a crafted system of experiments defined by a set of rules which defines how experimental units are grouped, in order to maximise the efficiency and precision of the experiments.
Such a group should contain units which are as alike as possible in those characteristics that may affect responses other than the applied treatments.
Treatments are them compared within each group, and the results analysed, often by using ANOVA techniques.
This analysis is then expected to remove the effect of differences, other than those caused by the applied treatment, between units in different groups.
Also known as
A experimental design is also known as a designed experiment.
Also see
- Results about experimental designs can be found here.
Sources
- 1998: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (2nd ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): experimental design
- 2008: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (4th ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): experimental design