Example of a Randomized Block Design

A company that makes semiconductor wafers

was interested in the amount of semiconductor
material that is lost in the production of their
wafers.

Experimental unit: one wafer

X: amount of material lost

Treatments: Four different types of wafer

Blocking factor: five production lines

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 ANOVA for RBD in SPSS

As in one-way ANOVA, you may use Analyze

→ Descriptive Statistics → Explore to obtain
descriptive statistics.

To do the ANOVA for an RBD:

• Choose Analyze → General Linear Model

→ Univariate.

• Move your response variable into the “De-

pendent Variable” box, and move the treat-
ment factor and the blocking factor into
the “Fixed Factor(s)” box.

• Click Model.

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• Click the Custom button and move the
treatment factor and the blocking factor
into the model box.

• Click Continue and then OK.

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Efficiency of a RBD

Is the RBD more efficient than a CRD in terms

of estimating a treatment effect µ+αi? Greater
efficiency in an estimation sense also translates
into greater power in testing for a treatment
effect.

2 and σ 2 denote the error variances for

Let σCR RB
completely randomized and randomized block
designs, respectively. Typically, we will have
2 ≥ σ2
σCR RB
since the experimental units in a CRD will be
subject to the variation within a block plus
variation between blocks. The quantity σRB 2

represents only variation within in a block.

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The variance of X̄i·, the estimate of µ + αi, is
2 /n for the CRD and σ 2 /b for the RBD,
σCR RB
where n is the number of replications of each
treatment in the CRD and b the number of
blocks in the RBD.

To have the same variance for each design, we

need
2
σCR 2
σRB 2
σCR
= , or n=b× 2 .
n b σRB

So, to get the same efficiency from a CRD

that we’d get using b blocks, n would have to
2 /σ 2
be σCR times b. The ratio σ 2 /σ 2
RB CR RB is
termed the relative efficiency of the RBD.

An estimate of the relative efficiency is given

by
(b − 1)M SB + b(t − 1)M SE
RE = .
(bt − 1)M SE

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In our semiconductor example,
(5 − 1)492.125 + 5(4 − 1)130.925
RE =
[5(4) − 1]130.925
= 1.58.
It is estimated that for a CRD we would have
needed n to be about 5(1.58) ≈ 8 to achieve
the same efficiency as the RBD.

Advantages and disadvantages of RBD

Advantages:

1. Greater power than CRD when there is

substantial block to block variation.

2. Any number of treatments and blocks can

be used.

3. Analysis is simple.

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Disadvantages:

1. With a large number of treatments it may

be difficult to form blocks that are com-
posed of similar experimental units. (Sup-
pose one has 4 litters of mice with 4 mice
in a litter, but t = 8.)

2. If there are treatment differences, they must

be the same in each block.

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