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: Within-group Study
Famous quotes containing the words order and/or effects:
“I had to kick their law into their teeth in order to save them.
However I have heard that sometimes you have to deal
Devilishly with drowning men in order to swim them to shore.
Or they will haul themselves and you to the trash and the fish beneath.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“If I had any doubts at all about the justice of my dislike for Shakespeare, that doubt vanished completely. What a crude, immoral, vulgar, and senseless work Hamlet is. The whole thing is based on pagan vengeance; the only aim is to gather together as many effects as possible; there is no rhyme or reason about it.”
—Leo Tolstoy (18281910)