What is an experiment?

Experiment is an activity undertaken to solve a

Presentation
Principles Title Goes Here
of Experimental Design particular problem or question, to retain or falsify a
…presentation subtitle. hypothesis concerning a phenomenon.

Violeta Bartolome
Senior Associate Scientist-Biometrics
Crop Research Informatics Laboratory
International Rice Research Institute

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Design of an Experiment Objective of experimental design

• Includes the set of treatments selected for comparison To ensure that measurements made on experimental
units are:
• Specifies the subjects or experimental units to which the
treatments will be applied 1. Free from bias
2. Precise
• Gives the rules by which the treatments are allocated to the
experimental units 3. Scientifically valid – valid experimental designs
and procedures
• Indicates the measurements to be made

• Indicates the analyses to be done to meet the objectives

Forward

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Bias Precision
The closeness with which results of replicate
The consistent deviation
analyses of a sample agree. It is a measure of
of analytical results from
dispersion or scattering around the mean value
the "true" value caused
by systematic errors in a
procedure.

Biased, high precision Unbiased, low precision Unbiased, high precision

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Precision is achieved through

Two sets of data: • Uniform experimental units
• Careful conduct of all operations before and during
Set I – 2 5 12 25 the experiment
Set II - 9 13 12 10 • More replicates
• Appropriate experimental design
Which set would have a more precise
estimate of the mean?

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Experimental Unit Treatment
• Unit of experimental material to which a treatment is • Dosage of material or a method that is to be tested in
applied. the experiment.
• Example: single leaf, a whole plant, an area of land • Example: crop variety, fertilizer level, or a
containing many plants, a pot or a bench in the management practice.
greenhouse, a single animal, several animals, or an
entire herd.

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Factors and levels of treatments Control

• Factors - variables that the experimenter varies in the • Included in the experiment to assess what would
experiment
happen if the experimental manipulation had not
• Levels - various quantities or aspects of a given factor
been performed
• Example: no fertilizer application, no weed control,
Factors Levels farmer’s variety
variety IR64, Peta, IR8
fertilizer 0, 30, 60, 90 N kg/ha
water stress well watered, stressed

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 Treatment effect
expected increase or decrease in response to
Choice of treatment
treatment application
• Dependent on questions researcher wants to be
Variety Varietal effect on yield answered.
varietal effect is the • May be chosen at random from all possible levels of
Hybrid 6 t/ha “increase” in yield of the
application or purposely selecting levels to be
Local 3 t/ha hybrid over the local check
included.
Pesticide application Effect on insect population
treatment effect is the
without 75 “decrease” in insect
with 10 population when pesticide is
applied

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N
H0

H0

N
2

2
Experiment: Compare Variety A and Variety B
Variety A Variety B
Hypothesis: Yield of new rice Variety A will be higher
than the traditional Variety B.
Objective: To test the hypothesis that the new rice
Variety A will out yield the traditional
Variety B. 4 tons 3.5 tons

How should this be done?

With all inputs the same, can you say that Variety A is
higher yielding than Variety B?

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 Chances are you will
not get the same yield
because of random or
experimental error or
unexplained variation.
Variety A
Variety A
What is Experimental Error
• Not an error in the sense of being wrong
• Defined as the differences among experimental units
treated alike
• It can be minimized but never totally eliminated.
There will always be some variations that cannot be
controlled

Will you get the same yield?

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When is “D”, the observed yield

When is a treatment effect significant?
A B A A difference, considered significant?

-- if D is substantially greater than E, then D is

4.0 3.5 4.0 4.1
tons tons
significant
tons tons

Objective
Subjective
D = yield difference E = yield difference (no bias)
between A and B between same variety
(treatment effect) (experimental error)
D = 0.5 E = 0.1 Statistical tests

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 Effect of experimental error in
statistical tests How do you measure experimental error?

Chance of detecting By Replication

ERROR treatment difference
• repeat treatment two or more times
• have a more precise estimate of treatment
Small
LARGE

LARGE Small

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An experiment involving 4 water management treatments in 3 replications T2 T1 T4 T2

is to be conducted. Layout is shown below:
T2 T4 T3 T1
T1 T3 T1 T4 9m
CRD
9m

T3 T4 T3 T2
8m
At harvest, the plot is divided into 3 parts to correspond to 3 8m
replications as shown below:
T2 T4 T3 T1
Rep I T4 T3 T1 T2
NO! replicates are RCB
9m not independent.
Rep II T1 T3 T2 T4 9m

8m
Rep III T2 T1 T4 T3
Are these “true” replications?
8m
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 B A Randomization

B A
• assignment of treatments to experimental plots so
that experimental units have an equal chance of
fertility gradient receiving any treatment
• Plots planted to A have a higher level of productivity than • ensures unbiased estimate of treatment means and
plots planted to B. experimental error
• Comparison between yield performances of • assures validity of the statistical tests
A and B would be biased in favor of A.

• To avoid bias treatments should be randomized.

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REPLICATION
• provides an estimate of the experimental error
Error Control

Ways to minimize or reduce experimental error?

RANDOMIZATION
o Increase number of replication

• ensures that the estimates are unbiased o Blocking

• ensures validity of statistical tests o Use of appropriate experimental design

o Rigorous control of measurement and field plot techniques

end

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 Direction of source of variation is
Blocking known
Low
Block1
assigning similar or uniform experimental units
into a “block” Block2

Block3

Block4
High

Block perpendicular to the source of variation

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Two known sources of variation in

Direction of source of variation is
unknown
perpendicular directions
Direction of fertility gradient

Block1 Block2

Direction of
Block3 Block4 water
gradient

• Use compact blocks

• Avoid using long and narrow blocks

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 Proper experimental design must include

• Replication
• Randomization
• Error Control

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