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Fractional factorial designs for legal psychology
Author(s) -
Stolle Dennis P.,
Robbennolt Jennifer K.,
Patry Marc,
Penrod Steven D.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
behavioral sciences and the law
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.649
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1099-0798
pISSN - 0735-3936
DOI - 10.1002/bsl.475
Subject(s) - fractional factorial design , factorial , order (exchange) , computer science , exploratory research , factorial experiment , factorial analysis , task (project management) , management science , psychology , mathematics , statistics , engineering , machine learning , social science , sociology , management , economics , mathematical analysis , finance
Abstract Researchers considering novel or exploratory psycholegal research are often able to easily generate a sizable list of independent variables (IVs) that might influence a measure of interest. Where the research question is novel and the literature is not developed, however, choosing from among a long list of potential variables those worthy of empirical investigation often presents a formidable task. Many researchers may feel compelled by legal psychology's heavy reliance on full‐factorial designs to narrow the IVs under investigation to two or three in order to avoid an expensive and unwieldy design involving numerous high‐order interactions. This article suggests that fractional factorial designs provide a reasonable alternative to full‐factorial designs in such circumstances because they allow the psycholegal researcher to examine the main effects of a large number of factors while disregarding high‐order interactions. An introduction to the logic of fractional factorial designs is provided and several examples from the social sciences are presented. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.