Definition:
The control group is composed of participants who do not receive the experimental treatment. When conducting an experiment, these people are randomly selected to be in this group. They also closely resemble the participants who are in the experimental group, or the individuals who receive the treatment.
While they do not receive the treatment, they do play a vital role in the research process. Experimenters compare the experimental group to the control group to determine if the treatment had an effect. By serving as a comparison group, researchers are able to isolate the independent variable and look at the impact it had.
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