Which design is quickest to administer?

Which design is quickest to administer?

• A. Independent Groups Design
• B. Matched Pairs Design
• C. Single-subject Design
• D. Repeated Measures Design

Answer: (D)

Using the same participants for every condition makes this design the quickest to administer. When you test all levels of the independent variable with the same people, you don’t need to recruit and run separate groups for each condition. That reduces the time spent on participant recruitment, assignment, and separate testing sessions, so data collection can be completed more quickly—often in a single session or a small number of sessions. Of course, this approach can introduce order or carryover effects, which researchers counterbalance to control but that adds some extra steps. Still, compared with designs that require separate groups for each condition (independent groups, matched pairs) or a single participant study that may involve lengthy, ongoing data collection, the repeated-measures approach is the fastest to administer.

Using the same participants for every condition makes this design the quickest to administer. When you test all levels of the independent variable with the same people, you don’t need to recruit and run separate groups for each condition. That reduces the time spent on participant recruitment, assignment, and separate testing sessions, so data collection can be completed more quickly—often in a single session or a small number of sessions.

Of course, this approach can introduce order or carryover effects, which researchers counterbalance to control but that adds some extra steps. Still, compared with designs that require separate groups for each condition (independent groups, matched pairs) or a single participant study that may involve lengthy, ongoing data collection, the repeated-measures approach is the fastest to administer.