Define counterbalancing

[arthurk]

so my grivas book sorta defines counterbalancing in a really crappy way
yeah sure i can explain it and all but does anyone know a good definition of it or have any examiners reports about counterbalancing?

[melaniej]

Counterbalancing was on last years exam -

The researcher should have included counterbalancing in her research design, where the order of the conditions was varied for each third of the participants. For example, in conditions a, b and c they could be arranged in any of the following orders: abc, acb, bac, bca, cab or cba.

If there is 2 groups, then counterbalancing involves half the participants performing a task under experimental conditions first, and control conditions second, and the other half of the participants performing the control condition first and the experimental condition second.

[Amnesiac]

The 2007 exam involved counterbalancing in the Research Investigation section. I suggest you read over that assessors resport, although it's highly unlikely that there will be a question about it this year seeing as though they have used a Repeated Measures Design 2 years in a row.

[arthurk]

yeah ive seen them but its rather specific to the research investigation thats on the exam rather than a general definition of what it is
i just use the half half thing but yeah dunno if there is a better definition
doubt it though

[claud08]

LOL arthur

[cns1511]

Counterbalancing is a type of experimental design in which all possible orders of presenting the variables are included. For example, if you have two groups of participants (group 1 and group 2) and two levels of an independent variable (level 1 and level 2), you would present one possible order (group 1 gets level 1 while group 2 gets level 2) first and then present the opposite order (group 1 gets level 2 while group 2 gets level 1). This way you can measure the effects in all possible situations. Obviously there are limitations with this procedure as not all studies can be designed this way and as you increase the number of variables, conditions, etc., it just becomes logistically problematic.

[Glockmeister]

Counterbalancing is a type of experimental design in which all possible orders of presenting the variables are included. For example, if you have two groups of participants (group 1 and group 2) and two levels of an independent variable (level 1 and level 2), you would present one possible order (group 1 gets level 1 while group 2 gets level 2) first and then present the opposite order (group 1 gets level 2 while group 2 gets level 1). This way you can measure the effects in all possible situations. Obviously there are limitations with this procedure as not all studies can be designed this way and as you increase the number of variables, conditions, etc., it just becomes logistically problematic.

Not quite.

The primary reason you would use counterbalancing is to avoid what is known as "order effects". The best way to illustrate this point is to use an example (this is pretty much the case for all the research methods)

Say I got a group of Psychology students together to complete this quiz in how happy they are. The way I intended to test this is to ask participants to complete a battery of tests. Now, if I were to give them all the tests in the same order to everyone, by the time you get to the last test you are either going to get:

- Them answering the question based on knowledge gained from doing the previous tests
- Them going "can't be fucked" and just not answering or doing the quiz properly

This introduces biases into your report, as the results you have gathered does not reflect the "true" thoughts and feelings of the participants.

[cns1511]

I also said that as you increase the number of variables it becomes difficult (as trying to systematically make all variables even for all groups would just get messy and confusing). This doesn't tend to happen as most people would only use a couple of variables at a time, but I was shown an experiment last year (can't remember what it was) that had ~5 variables and 3 groups. That sort of experiment is what I am refering to with the last part.

[Glockmeister]

I also said that as you increase the number of variables it becomes difficult (as trying to systematically make all variables even for all groups would just get messy and confusing). This doesn't tend to happen as most people would only use a couple of variables at a time, but I was shown an experiment last year (can't remember what it was) that had ~5 variables and 3 groups. That sort of experiment is what I am refering to with the last part.

Yeah, that's correct. I was a bit more concerned with this though.

"This way you can measure the effects in all possible situations"

That in an exam wouldn't get you a mark, because it's too ambiguous and doesn't mention "order effect" which is crucial to understanding why we use counterbalancing. In any question asking why use counterbalancing, you must mention "order effect" and if there is a case study attached to the question, you must apply the theory of "order effects" to the case study.

[cns1511]

Yeah, that is correct. I forgot to mention that then (was between chemistry and biology homework so I wasn't concentrating too hard on this).

[ and my phone won't let me quote ]