Chapter-2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

 Basic Principles of Experimental Designs

The basic principles of experimental designs are randomization, replication and local control.
These principles make a valid test of significance possible. Each of them is described briefly
in the following subsections.

(1) Randomization. The first principle of an experimental design is randomization, which is a

random process of assigning treatments to the experimental units. The random process
implies that every possible allotment of treatments has the same probability. An experimental
unit is the smallest division of the experimental material, and a treatment means an
experimental condition whose effect is to be measured and compared. The purpose of
randomization is to remove bias and other sources of extraneous variation which are not
controllable. Another advantage of randomization (accompanied by replication) is that it
forms the basis of any valid statistical test. Hence, the treatments must be assigned at random
to the experimental units. Randomization is usually done by drawing numbered cards from a
well-shuffled pack of cards, by drawing numbered balls from a well-shaken container or by
using tables of random numbers.

(2) Replication. The second principle of an experimental design is replication, which is a

repetition of the basic experiment. In other words, it is a complete run for all the treatments to
be tested in the experiment. In all experiments, some kind of variation is introduced because
of the fact that the experimental units such as individuals or plots of land in agricultural
experiments cannot be physically identical. This type of variation can be removed by using a
number of experimental units. We therefore perform the experiment more than once, i.e., we
repeat the basic experiment. An individual repetition is called a replicate. The number, the
shape and the size of replicates depend upon the nature of the experimental material. A
replication is used to:

(i) Secure a more accurate estimate of the experimental error, a term which represents the
differences that would be observed if the same treatments were applied several times to the
same experimental units;

(ii) Decrease the experimental error and thereby increase precision, which is a measure of the
variability of the experimental error; and

(iii) Obtain a more precise estimate of the mean effect of a treatment, since σ2/y=σ2/n,
where n denotes the number of replications.

(3) Local Control. It has been observed that all extraneous sources of variation are not removed
by randomization and replication. This necessitates a refinement of the experimental
technique. In other words, we need to choose a design in such a manner that all extraneous
sources of variation are brought under control. For this purpose, we make use of local control,
a term referring to the amount of balancing, blocking and grouping of the experimental units.
Balancing means that the treatments should he assigned to the experimental units in such a
way that the result is a balanced arrangement of the treatments. Blocking means that like
experimental units should be collected together to form a relatively homogeneous group. A
block is also a replicate. The main purpose of the principle of local control is to increase the
efficiency of an experimental design by decreasing the experimental error. The point to
remember here is that the term local control should not be confused with the word control.
The word control in experimental design is used for a treatment which does not receive any
treatment when we need to find out the effectiveness of other treatments through comparison.

 Experimental error: The unexplained random part of variation in any

experiment is termed as experimental error. An estimate of experimental error can be
obtained by replication.
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 Classification of experimental designs: There are three basic types
of experimental research designs. These include pre-experimental designs, true experimental
designs, and quasi-experimental designs. The degree to which the researcher assigns subjects
to conditions and groups distinguishes the type of experimental design. This module will
focus on the different types of true experimental designs. True experimental designs
are characterized by the random selection of participants and the random assignment of the
participants to groups in the study. The researcher also has complete control over the
extraneous variables. Therefore, it can be confidently determined that that effect on the
dependent variable is directly due to the manipulation of the independent variable. For these
reasons, true experimental designs are often considered the best type of research design.
There are several types of true experimental designs and they are as follows:

 Post-test Only Design – This type of design has two randomly assigned groups: an
experimental group and a control group. Neither group is pretested before the implementation
of the treatment. The treatment is applied to the experimental group and the post-test is
carried out on both groups to assess the effect of the treatment or manipulation. This type of
design is common when it is not possible to pretest the subjects.
 Pretest-Post-test Only Design - The subjects are again randomly assigned to either the
experimental or the control group. Both groups are pretested for the independent variable. The
experimental group receives the treatment and both groups are post-tested to examine the
effects of manipulating the independent variable on the dependent variable.
 Solomon Four Group Design – Subjects are randomly assigned into one of four groups.
There are two experimental groups and two control groups. Only two groups are pretested.
One pretested group and one unprotested group receive the treatment. All four groups will
receive the post-test. The effects of the dependent variable originally observed are then
compared to the effects of the independent variable on the dependent variable as seen in the
post-test results. This method is really a combination of the previous two methods and is used
to eliminate potential sources of error.
 Factorial Design – The researcher manipulates two or more independent variables (factors)
simultaneously to observe their effects on the dependent variable. This design allows for the
testing of two or more hypotheses in a single project. One example would be a researcher who
wanted to test two different protocols for burn wounds with the frequency of the care being
administered in 2, 4, and 6 hour increments.
 Randomized Block Design – This design is used when there are inherent differences between
subjects and possible differences in experimental conditions. If there are a large number of
experimental groups, the randomized block design may be used to bring some homogeneity to
each group. For example, if a researcher wanted to examine the effects of three different kinds
of cough medications on children ages 2-16, the research may want to create age groups
(blocks) for the children, realizing that the effects of the medication may depend on age. This
is a simple method for reducing the variability among treatment groups.
 Crossover Design (also known as Repeat Measures Design) – Subjects in this design are
exposed to more than one treatment and the subjects are randomly assigned to different orders
of the treatment. The groups compared have an equal distribution of characteristics and there
is a high level of similarity among subjects that are exposed to different conditions. Crossover
designs are excellent research tools, however, there is some concern that the response to the
second treatment or condition will be influenced by their experience with the first treatment.
In this type of design, the subjects serve as their own control groups.

 One Factor Designs

With these designs, only one factor is under investigation, and the objective is to determine whether the
response is significantly different at different factor levels.
 Factorial Designs
 In factorial designs, multiple factors are investigated simultaneously during the test. As in one factor
designs, qualitative and/or quantitative factors can be considered. The objective of these designs is to
identify the factors that have a significant effect on the response, as well as investigate the effect of
interactions
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 Taguchi's Orthogonal Arrays
Taguchi's orthogonal arrays are highly fractional designs, used to estimate main effects using only a
few experimental runs. These designs are not only applicable to two level factorial experiments, but
also can investigate main effects when factors have more than two levels. Designs are also available to
investigate main effects for certain mixed level experiments where the factors included do not have the
same number of levels.

 DESIGN PROCESS-
Designed experiments are usually carried out in five stages: planning, screening, optimization,
robustness testing and verification.
 Planning-It is important to carefully plan for the course of experimentation before embarking upon
the process of testing and data collection
 Screening-Screening experiments are used to identify the important factors that affect the system
under investigation out of the large pool of potential factors.
 Optimization-Once attention is narrowed down to the important factors affecting the process, the
next step is to determine the best setting of these factors to achieve the desired objective. Depending on
the product or process under investigation, this objective may be to either maximize, minimize or
achieve a target value of the response.
 Robustness Testing-Once the optimal settings of the factors have been determined, it is
important to make the product or process insensitive to variations that are likely to be experienced in
the application environment. These variations result from changes in factors that affect the process but
are beyond the control of the analyst. Such factors as humidity, ambient temperature, variation in
material, etc. are referred to as noise factors. It is important to identify sources of such variation and
take measures to ensure that the product or process is made insensitive (or robust) to these factors.
 Verification-This final stage involves validation of the best settings of the factors by conducting a
few follow-up experiment runs to confirm that the system functions as desired and all objectives are
met.