For a within-subjects design, counterbalancing is defined as changing the order

Question

For a within-subjects design, counterbalancing is defined as changing the order in which treatment conditions are administered from one participant to another so that the treatment conditions are matched with respect to time. The goal is to use every possible order of treatments with an equal number of individuals participating in each sequence. The purpose of counterbalancing is to eliminate the potential for confounding by disrupting any systematic relationship between the order of treatments and time-related factors Although counterbalancing is useful when dealing with order and time-related factors, there are still limitations to its effectiveness Which statements are true with regard to counterbalancing? Check all that apply Counterbalancing eliminates order effects. Complete counterbalancing can greatly increase the number of participants required. Counterbalancing can increase within-treatment variance.

Explanation / Answer

Counterbalancing can remove order effects but not completely.It does not eliminate, rather distributes it across conditions, balancing the effects.In within subject designs, being tested in one condition can have an effect on performance in second condition, this is called carryover effect, practice effect, order effect.Random assignment of participants in different orders can remove these confounds. True, counterbalancing in studies with many conditions means having more participants.For example a within subject design with 10 participants will require only 10 even if there are 4 research conditions, in a non counterbalanced study.However in complete counterbalancing, there will be 24(4×3×2×1) groups, so the number of participants must be divisible by 24, which even at 2 participants per group is 48. Yes,counterbalacing can increase within treatment variance, as it does not eliminate but rather distribute the order effect, leading to high scores of some participants in some treatment, making it difficult to study the actual difference between treatments.

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