A NOTE CONCERNING THE MATCHED GROUP DESIGN

Despite its strong logical and technical appeal, the employment of the matched group design in applied psychological research has been restricted by practical problems associated with its use. A procedure which circumvents several of the problems of conventional matching was described. Basically, the procedure involves pairing of subjects from two or more treatment pools after the completion of training or other treatment, but without knowledge of the performance of the subjects. Three empirical tryouts of the procedure were summarized. The procedure worked quite well when only two groups were involved and was fairly satisfactory when applied to four groups. Other experimental designs may be better when more than two groups are involved. It was concluded that matching from treatment pools after differential treatment of the pools warrants more extensive use in applied psychological research than it has been accorded in the past.