The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is planning a study to determine whether breakwaters help decrease erosion at a large
lake. They divide the shoreline into 100-foot plots, installing some with breakwaters and some without. However, the east and west shorelines of this lake receive very different wave patterns due to the wind. The DNR suspects this will affect the responses to the breakwaters. Because of this, the DNR plans to treat each shoreline as a different group. This study is an example of
This study is an example of a blocked design experiment.
Explanation:
Directly, we can say that a blocked design experiment is an experiment that has the object of study divided into blocks that are repeated throughout the experimental unit. In the experiment presented in the question above, we can recognize these blocks when the researcher decided to divide the coastline into 30-meter plots, installing some with breakwaters and others without. Each plot, in this case, is a block.
This type of experiment requires that all blocks are the same and be subjected to the same factors. This allows the researcher to have control of the entire experiment and obtain homogeneous results in each block. In the experiment shown above, we can see that this control has been impaired, since the coastlines to the east and west of the lake receive very different wave patterns due to the wind. This will prevent the blocks from having homogeneous results, since the action of the breakwaters will be affected differently in each block.
