Designing Experiments

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Planning Research -- Survey Sampling

The prototype of the thinking of a statistician considering the design of an experiment was exemplified by Sir Ronald A. Fisher. He described how to test the hypothesis that a certain lady could distinguish by flavor alone whether the milk or the tea was first placed in the cup. This sounds like a frivolous application, but in fact, it allowed him to illustrate the most important ideas of experimental design.

Design of Experiments was built on the foundation of the Analysis of variance, a collection of models in which the observed variance is partitioned into components due to different factors which are estimated and/or tested.

Developments of the theory of Linear Models have encompassed and surpassed the cases that concerned early writers. Today, the theory rests on advanced topics in Abstract Algebra and Combinatorics.