Random assignment is a human-made experimental procedure for allocating subjects or experimental units into treatment groups using a chance mechanism (e.g., coin flip, random number generator). Its parameters are: (1) a defined set of subjects or units, (2) two or more treatment groups, (3) a chance-based allocation rule that gives each unit a known probability of assignment to each group. It persists as a standardized practice in experimental design, taught and replicated across scientific disciplines to isolate causal effects by equating groups on all unmeasured variables. [formal: assignatio casualis | substrate: behavior | horizon: a life | explicit: yes | epoch: 0.01]
Accepted ontology entry
random assignment
Random assignment is a human-made experimental procedure for allocating subjects or experimental units into treatment groups using a chance mechanism (e.g., coin flip, random number generator). Its parameters are: (1) a defined set of subj…
Definition
Why it is in scope
A human-made procedure in experimental design and statistics — the allocation of subjects, units, or observations to treatment conditions or groups by a chance mechanism (e.g., random number generation, lottery). Built to persist through documented protocols, lab manuals, and the methodological literature of the empirical sciences.
Names and aliases
- random assignmenten · CANONICAL
Relations from this entry
- cmrw05y3202wz2cei9lz7lrwkINSTANCE_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).
Relations to this entry
- cmrw7ivx0007ukyo6ibgmfbcy← DEPENDS_ON
Removal test: remove random assignment and allocation concealment has nothing to conceal — it exists to hide the sequence of randomized group assignments from study personnel. Without random assignment, the mechanism of allocation concealment is operationally empty.
Record identity
- Created
- Jul 22, 2026, 1:07 PM UTC
- Content hash
- fa69f0c8ada125789a957b01a92b49a98d6617a6250663fc1229706c70ef211d