<p>Hey....can somebody explain to me what a matched pairs design is and give an example of one such experiment?</p>
<p>thanks!</p>
<p>Matched Pair designs :
A matched pairs design is a special case of the randomized block design. It is used when the experiment has only two treatment conditions; and subjects can be grouped into pairs, based on some blocking variable. Then, within each pair, subjects are randomly assigned to different treatments.</p>
<p>For the Acme experiment, the 1000 subjects are grouped into 500 matched pairs. Each pair is matched on gender and age. For example, Pair 1 might be two women, both age 21. Pair 2 might be two women, both age 22, and so on.</p>
<p>For the Acme example, the matched pairs design is an improvement over the completely randomized design and the randomized block design. Like the other designs, the matched pairs design uses randomization to control for confounding. However, unlike the others, this design explicitly controls for two potential lurking variables - age and gender</p>