 Title of entry

Random assignment

 Synonyms

 Definition

Random assignment defines the assignment of participants of a study to their

respective group strictly by chance.

 Introduction

Statistical inference is based on the theory of probability and effects investigated in

psychological studies are defined by measures that are treated as random variables.

The inference about the probability of a given result with regard to an assumed

population and the popular term “significance” are only meaningful and without bias

if the measure of interest is really a random variable. To achieve the creation of a

random variable in form of a measure derived from a sample of participants, these

participants have to be randomly drawn. In an experimental study involving different

groups of participants, these participants have to additionally be randomly assigned to

one of the groups.

 Main Text (headings chosen by authors)

Why is random assignment crucial for statistical inference?

Many psychological investigations, such as clinical treatment studies or

neuropsychological training studies, comprise different participant groups. The goal of

most studies is to generalize results obtained for the sample to a larger population of
people. These generalizations are based on the theory that all observations made in the

experiment are randomly drawn from a population with a given random distribution.

The observations are usually called xi, referring to the concrete realization of a random

variable Xi, that stands for all possible values the observation of person i may take on.

If the distribution of the population, this observation was randomly drawn from, is

adequately described by a normal distribution with parameters  and 2, this random

variable is described by:

Xi ~ N(; 2).

Moreover, the statistical measures computed from the random observations are also

random variables (because they are derived from random variables). Often, means of

different groups are compared, such as in neuropsychological training studies. For

example, a plausible question would be, if the mean reaction time of a training group

and a control group ( and ) differ after the reaction time training. If the

random variables of the observations of the groups follow a normal distribution with

variance ², the two means computed from the random variables in the two groups of

equal size n are random variables defined by:

and .

To see if the training of the two groups differs, the difference between these two

means is computed, which, in turn, is another random variable:

Thus, it becomes clear that the theoretical ground for statistical inference from

experimental results can only hold if the observations in the groups are randomly

drawn from a population. However, in a study comprising more than one group of
participants, randomness of observations is not guaranteed by randomly drawing a

sample from the population in order to conduct an experiment: all groups have to

comprise random samples of observations. Notably, random variables are based on

drawing observations with replacement, meaning that a single observation may be

drawn several times. This is not feasible in psychological research, yet it constitutes a

negligible bias if the sample constitutes less than five percent of the total population.

The importance of random assignment

The previous section explains why statistical inference and unbiased significance

testing cannot be achieved without drawing cases for observations at random from a

population to create a random sample. However, if more than one group is needed in a

psychological investigation, the random process is not finished with drawing a random

sample from the population. The assignment of the randomly drawn participants to the

groups has to be at random as well in order to ensure any measures computed from

cases within a group are still random variables.

Leaving aside the fundamentals of statistical inference and random variables, it is easy

to imagine cases in which non-random distribution of the subjects to the groups may

lead to biases or incorrect results. If, for some reason, one of two groups is assigned

the subjects that are free to be tested in the evening and the other is assigned the

subjects that are free in the morning, the first group may only comprise employed

participants and the other group solely unemployed ones, possibly providing an

experimental confound. The same assigning the participants to different groups by

age, sex, or other attributes. If this attribute is not the independent variable of choice,

group effects cannot be clearly traced to the independent variable. Random assignment

therefore, also provides a “safeguard” for the researcher, protecting him from letting

his wished or opinions (unconsciously) influence the outcome of a study by

 systematically assigning different types of participants to particular groups

(Gigerenzer et al., 1989).

The only way to ensure that the random variable assumption for the measure of

interest still holds is to distribute all subjects strictly at random over the groups.

Random distribution can be achieved by an automatized process, like a random

number generator, pre-existing lists for assigning the subjects to the groups in a certain

order, or even a coin flip.

 Importantly, random assignment cannot ensure that the distributions of gender, age,

and other potential confounds are the same across all groups. It can only make it

possible that the deviation is at random, which is what the distribution of the random

variables account for and what is ultimately the basis for significance testing and

confidence intervals.

 Conclusion

 Conclusion

Measures computed from observations in samples are random variables. These

random variables are defined by their random distribution, which, in turn, is defined

by its shape derived from random selection or random sampling. When multiple

groups are involved in an investigation, random sampling does not stop after sampling

participants at random from the population but continues with randomly distributing

them over the different groups to enable unbiased estimates within groups. This

random distribution is called random sampling and can be accomplished by any

random process, such as a random number generator.

 Cross-References (related entries selected from the table of contents)

 Random selection; confound (experimental)

 References (up to 10 for short entries; up to 30 for medium and long entries)

Gigerenzer, G., Swijtink, Z., Porter, T., Daston, L., Beatty, J., & Kruger, L. (1989).

The empire of chance: How probability changed science and everyday-life. New York:

Cambridge.