What it says really: the idea that, as far as possible, researchers should hold a position of equipoise, not wanting one outcome from a piece of work more than another. The opposite of researcher bias/allegiance.
Details #
It’s a lovely idea but very hard to achieve of course, and perhaps even harder to achieve in therapy research where researcher/clinicians often have strong beliefs that one theory or therapy is better than another. There was a phase in which funding bodies sought a sort of research team equipoise by requiring that research teams contained people with opposing allegiances. My sense is that that has waned again and it always struck me as a bit naïvely optimistic that this was going to really remove allegiances and biases.
I am often surprised by how, with a few exceptions, most leading/successful/influential researchers in the therapy world seem to make little attempt to look as if they are holding equipoise or even adopt methods that clearly seek to promote. (Apart that is from the rather spurious use of controlled trials which, when they cannot be carried out double blind seem to be more virtue signalling than real bias reduction!)
Try also #
Chapters #
Not specifically mentioned anywhere but chapter 10 is about how we can try to minimise these effects
Online resources #
None feasible that I can see!
Dates #
First created 15.v.24.
