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allocation

— The process of assigning participants in a study to treatment comparison groups.

Synonyms:

assignment

Full explanation:

Comparing like with like is a key feature of fair tests of treatments.

Random allocation, or some other unbiased way of determining who receives which treatment in a study, is used to ensure that comparison groups are as similar as possible at the beginning of a study.

In studies where participants decide themselves which treatment they are allocated, there is a high risk of bias due to the likelihood of there being differences between the [treatment comparison groups (confounders)|treatment comparison group] other than the treatments being compared.

See also:

allocation bias  ·  allocation schedule  ·  random allocation  ·  stratified randomization

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