Order Effects
Order effects occur when a participant in an experiment is able to perform a task and then perform it again at some later time. Generally, they either have a positive (subjects become better at performing the task) or negative (subjects become worse at performing the task) effect. Repeated measures designs are almost always affected by order effects; the primary exception to this rule is in the case of a longitudinal study. How well these are measured is controlled by the exact type of repeated measure design that is used. To counteract order effects there is a method which you can use called counter balancing.
Examples of order effects are as follows: practice, boredom and fatigue which can compromise the reliability (consistency) of the results.
Read more about this topic: Repeated Measures Design
Famous quotes containing the words order and/or effects:
“My ideas are a curse.
They spring from a radical discontent
with the awful order of things.
I play clown. I play carpenter. I play nurse.
I play witch.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Like the effects of industrial pollution ... the AIDS crisis is evidence of a world in which nothing important is regional, local, limited; in which everything that can circulate does, and every problem is, or is destined to become, worldwide.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)