A human-made methodological technique in which experimental units (participants, samples, plots, etc.) are assigned to treatment conditions by a chance process — typically a random number generator, random number table, or physical chance mechanism — so that each unit has a known, non-zero probability of receiving any given condition. Parameters: chance-based allocation, known probabilities, concealment of allocation sequence. Persists through statistical practice, registered study protocols, and the methodological standards of empirical disciplines. [formal: randomizatio | substrate: behavior | horizon: a moment | explicit: yes | epoch: 0.01]
Accepted ontology entry
randomization
A human-made methodological technique in which experimental units (participants, samples, plots, etc.) are assigned to treatment conditions by a chance process — typically a random number generator, random number table, or physical chance…
Definition
Why it is in scope
A human-made methodological technique — the deliberate assignment of experimental units to treatment conditions by chance, ensuring that each unit has a known probability of receiving any condition. Built to persist through statistical practice, study protocols, and the replication standards of empirical research.
Names and aliases
- randomizationen · CANONICAL
Relations from this entry
- cmrvpfry601wq2ceichuy36vpINSTANCE_OF →
Direction tested: randomization IS a specific kind of experimental-design method. Per Law 9, a competent speaker calls randomization a type of experimental design practice. Randomization is the specific technique; experimental-design is the general field of methodology.
Relations to this entry
- cmrw3k7lr005oekzzgtfr9o7o← INSTANCE_OF
Direction tested: random assignment INSTANCE_OF randomization. Random assignment IS a specific kind of randomization — the procedure of randomly allocating subjects to groups, as opposed to random sampling which selects subjects. A competent speaker would call random assignment 'a randomization' (Law 9a test). Nearest kind: randomization is the immediate parent category. The edge carves the distinction between assignment (who gets which treatment) and sampling (who is in the population).
- cmrw4r3va000huq6vlm2uwlpt← DEPENDS_ON
Remove randomization and stratified sampling stops operating — it is fundamentally defined by random selection within strata. Without the random component it becomes stratified selection, a different method. Present-tense removal test (Law 8).
- cmseg3lqq05e83vv3d7t2gsci← DEPENDS_ON
A permutation test operates by randomly reassigning labels between groups. Remove randomization entirely and the method ceases to function — there is no way to generate the null distribution. The removal test passes: the core mechanism is permutation-based inference which requires random assignment.
Record identity
- Created
- Jul 22, 2026, 11:32 AM UTC
- Content hash
- 05ae630702829fba8d2296ff6847093981df1067146cdcb411789cee55115c37