Restricted randomization

<p>In <a href="/facts/Statistics/DNPsKGYU">statistics</a>, restricted randomization occurs in the <a href="/facts/Design_of_experiments/VMrNftbr">design of experiments</a> and in particular in the context of <a href="/facts/Randomized_experiment/MoDQXKsT">randomized experiments</a> and <a href="/facts/Randomized_controlled_trial/LG9lkyVx">randomized controlled trials</a>. Restricted randomization allows intuitively poor allocations of treatments to experimental units to be avoided, while retaining the theoretical benefits of randomization. For example, in a <a href="/facts/Clinical_trial/q8LMr832">clinical trial</a> of a new proposed treatment of obesity compared to a control, an  experimenter would want to avoid outcomes of the randomization in which the new treatment was allocated only to the heaviest patients.
</p><p>The concept was introduced by <a href="/facts/Frank_Yates/qNsf6uJQ">Frank Yates</a> (1948) and <a href="/facts/William_J._Youden/hvI0CjdM">William J. Youden</a> (1972) "as a way of avoiding bad spatial patterns of treatments in designed experiments."
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Restricted randomization open-in-new

Restricted randomization