Question

In a clinical trial for a new headache medication, participants are randomly assigned to a treatment group or a placebo group. They do not know whether they are receiving the medication or the placebo. The element of experiment design being used is ____.
1)replication
2)randomization
3)blinding

Answer 1

The element of experiment design being used in this clinical trial is **3) blinding**.

Blinding refers to the practice where participants do not know whether they are receiving the actual treatment or a placebo, which helps to eliminate bias in their reporting of outcomes. Randomization refers to the assignment of participants to treatment or placebo groups, and replication refers to repeating the experiment to confirm results.