protected class

under U.S. antidiscrimination law, groups that cannot be unfairly excluded from some process or opportunity (e.g., in job hiring, education, housing) on the basis of sex, age, familial status, race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, physical or mental handicap, or prior military service.

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Psychology term of the day

February 24th 2025

crossover design

a study in which different treatments are applied to the same individuals but in different sequences. In the most basic crossover design, a group of participants receives Treatment A followed by Treatment B whereas a second group receives Treatment B followed by Treatment A. For example, a researcher could use such a design to assess the effect of attending a day service on stroke survivors, randomly assigning participants to one of two groups, the first of which would attend the service for 6 months and then not attend for 6 months, and the second of which would not attend the service for 6 months and then would attend for 6 months. As with within-subjects designs, the benefit of this design is the reduction in error variance. Also called crossover study; crossover trial. Compare parallel-groups design. See also Graeco-Latin square; Latin square.