202-1 Fundamentals of Experimental Design: What the Textbooks Don't Necessarily Tell You.

See more from this Division: ASA Section: Biometry and Statistical Computing
See more from this Session: Symposium--Statistical Concepts and Tools to Aid In Publishing Proper Research Conclusions
Tuesday, October 23, 2012: 8:00 AM
Millennium Hotel, Bronze Ballroom A, Second Floor
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Michael Casler, U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center, USDA-ARS, Madison, WI
We often think of experimental designs as analogous to recipes in a cookbook.  We look for something that we like and frequently return to those that have become our long-standing favorites.  We can easily become complacent, favoring the tried-and-true designs (or recipes) over those that contain unknown or untried ingredients or those that are simply too weird for our tastes.  Instead, I prefer to think of experimental designs as a creative series of decisions that are meant to solve one or more problems.  These problems may be real or imagined - we may have direct evidence of a past or current problem or we may simply want insurance against future potential problems.  The most significant manifestation of a "problem" is unsatisfactory p-values that prevent us from developing inferences about treatment differences.  Six tenets of experimental design - randomization, degree of replication, form of replication, size of experimental unit, level of blocking, and size/shape of blocks - can be used creatively, intelligently, and consciously to solve both real and perceived problems in comparative experiments.
See more from this Division: ASA Section: Biometry and Statistical Computing
See more from this Session: Symposium--Statistical Concepts and Tools to Aid In Publishing Proper Research Conclusions