Out of Control? Managing Baseline Variability in Experimental Studies with Control Groups

Control groups are expected to show what happens in the absence of the intervention of interest (negative control) or the effect of an intervention expected to have an effect (positive control). Although they usually give results we can anticipate, they are an essential component of all experiments, both in vitro and in vivo, and fulfil a number of important roles in any experimental design. Perhaps most importantly they help you understand the influence of variables that you cannot fully eliminate from your experiment and thus include them in your analysis of treatment effects. Because of this it is essential that they are treated as any other experimental group in terms of subjects, randomisation, blinding, etc. It also means that in almost all cases, contemporaneous control groups are required. Historical and baseline control groups serve a slightly different role and cannot fully replace control groups run as an integral part of the experiment. When used correctly, a good control group not only validates your experiment; it provides the basis for evaluating the effect of your treatments.