Glossary

‘Between’, ‘within’ or ‘mixed’ study design

A ‘between’ study design compares different conditions between groups, a ‘within’ design compares different conditions within the same group, and a ‘mixed’ study combines the two.

Confirmatory analyses

Analyses set before data collection or examination: their role is to test hypotheses.

Counterbalancing

A technique used by psychologists to deal with order effects when conducting repetitive tests, giving half the participants the tests in one order, the other half in the reverse order.

Dependent variable

In a scientific experiment design, this is the variable that changes as a result of an intervention: the researcher is interested in recording these changes.

Experimental conditions

In a scientific experiment design, these are the factors that are controlled during the experiment.

Exploratory analyses

Analyses set after an initial data set and hypothesis have been generated: they are useful for discovering patterns in data, in order to foster hypothesis development and refinement.

Independent variable

In a scientific experiment design, this is the variable that the researcher manipulates in order to investigate its effect.

Preregistration

The practice of publishing the plan for a study, such as research questions, hypotheses, research design, or data analysis plans before the data has been collected or examined.

Registration

Some disciplines differentiate between ‘preregistration’ and ‘registration’, but the broad purpose is often similar.

Research degrees of freedom

The flexibility inherent in research, from hypothesis generation, designing and conducting a research study, to processing and analysing the data and interpreting and reporting results.