metacriterion

n. a suggested criterion, proposed by Hungarian-born philosopher Imre Lakatos (1922–1974), for evaluating competing understandings of science. Lakatos derived his metacriterion from the use of similar criteria in the evaluation of competing philosophical theories and proposed it as an alternative to both the falsificationism of Austrian-born British philosopher Karl Popper (1902–1994) and the historical theories of science of U.S. philosopher Thomas Kuhn (1922–1996). According to the metacriterion, a theory of science should be preferred to its competitors if it (a) makes more rational sense of the history of scientific practice and findings and (b) can be shown to lead to the discovery of more novel historical facts.

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Psychology term of the day

May 9th 2024

overmatching

1. unnecessary matching: the pairing of research participants on an excessive number of characteristics or on characteristics having little or no potential influence upon the outcome of interest. For example, a researcher investigating a new drug treatment for cancer might create two groups whose members are of the same age and sex, administering the drug to one group and a placebo to the other group. Such group comparability would allow the researcher greater validity in attributing any changes between them to the treatment rather than to sex or age differences. If, however, the researcher were to pair the groups on such additional factors as area of residence and household income, overmatching would be present and likely to mask the true nature of the relationship under investigation and lead to statistical bias, such as by reducing the power and efficiency of analyses.

2. see matching law.