Single-Blind Study

A single-blind study occurs when the participants are deliberately kept ignorant of either the group to which they have been assigned or key information about the materials they are assessing, but the experimenter is in possession of this knowledge. Single-blind studies are typically conducted when the participants' knowledge of their group membership or the identity of the materials they are assessing might bias the results. However, there are situations where creating such ignorance might be impossible or unethical, and in others, it might be advisable for more than the participants to be kept unaware of the test conditions. This entry discusses the single-blind study in relation to the unblinded (neither experimenter nor participants are kept ignorant) and double-blind study (both experimenter and participants are kept ...