PSYC 3380 Lecture 2: NERM 2

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 3380
• Professor: Jeffrey Spence

Document Summary

Randomized experiments, randomized control trials (rct), or randomized clinical trials (rct) Random assignment is considered to be the gold standard for researchers to infer causality: why did x change with y. A way of coniguring things with simple questions: o o. The efect of the manipulation is simply the diference in y between the treatment and control condition. The change in y can stem from no other cause than that of the manipulation hence, causality. If you did not randomly assign individuals to one group or another, you cannot be conident that the outcome is purely due to the manipulation due to the groups possibly being deliberately diferent. The efectiveness of random assignment can depend on sample size: as sample size decreases, the likelihood of equivalence also decreases, likelihood of counterfactual goes down. Because neds do not use random assignment groups may not be equivalent.