counterbalancing.

1. The planned variation of condition or task order across participants or trials to reduce the confounding effects of order.

2. The offsetting of a weight, force or influence by another that acts against it.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• counterbalancing of conditions
• complete counterbalancing

On the page

Counterbalancing of conditions reduced the risk that fatigue would always coincide with the final task.

Complete counterbalancing was impractical because the design contained too many possible orders.

Usage notes

Primary category: science / research / methodology. Forms: Usually uncountable. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: method specification, measurement critique, model interpretation, qualification. Disciplines: research methods, statistics, experimental design. Commonness: uncommon.