control group

[kuhn-trohl groop]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

noun

(in an experiment or clinical trial) a group of subjects closely resembling the treatment group in many demographic variables but not receiving the active medication or factor under study and thereby serving as a comparison group when treatment results are evaluated.

control group

noun

any group used as a control in a statistical experiment, esp a group of patients who receive either a placebo or a standard drug during an investigation of the effects of another drug on other patients

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Word History and Origins

Origin of control group¹

First recorded in 1950–55

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

We had a large control group, and they got the election almost perfectly right.

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We went back to them a year later, before the midterm elections, and we found that deliberators voted according to climate change as a preference, but the control group voted on all the other issues you'd expect — you know, immigration, crime, things like that.

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Then we have a control group that doesn't deliberate and answers another questionnaire at the end of the whole process.

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So we can compare the deliberative group's views with the control group, and if it's a high-quality poll we know whether it's representative.

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In 2021, Fisher co-authored research that also found people who used internet searches more had an inflated sense of their own knowledge, reporting exaggerated claims about things they read on the internet compared to a control group who learned things without it.

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control grid Control key

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