Trial plans are a way of planning a specific trial to increase the likelihood of learning something useful. Note that as all trials will involve an element of intervention, trial plans will be linked to intervention plans as the later contains separate information.
The plan contains:
Context & Rationale
- Field location(s) - description and details
- Trial Summary - describe the overall project aims, vision and potential impact
- Research Questions - the questions you are trying to answer
- Literature Review - make the case that what you are proposing addresses a clear knowledge gap by placing it in the context of existing knowledge.
- Explain how answering these questions could improve practice in ecological restoration. - include how this could change outcomes and cost effectiveness of restoration practices and at what scale. Describe the site (or subject) of the experiment and the extent to which it is representative of other sites where the intervention could be applied.
Experimental Design
Experiments should typically include a control group and/or comparisons between multiple interventions (these will all be referred to as treatments in the following questions). Experiments should also have a clearly defined experimental unit that is appropriate for the question being addressed. The experimental unit is the smallest unit in an experiment (e.g.: tree, plot of land, pond) for which you intend to measure the effect of your intervention (e.g.: tree growth).
- What are the intervention treatments? Provide a detailed description of each treatment, including any controls or comparisons.
- What is the sample size and replication level? State the number of experimental units per treatment and the rationale for your sample size. If power analysis or similar methods were used, briefly describe them.
- How are the experimental units arranged in space? Describe how the experiment is laid out in space (include maps or diagrams if appropriate) and how treatments are allocated to the experimental unit (e.g.: random allocation of intervention vs control).
- What will be measured and how? Specify the outcomes or variables you will measure, how these will be measured, and the timeline for data collection. If the variable of interest cannot be measured directly please justify the choice of any proxy measures.
- How will the data be analysed to evaluate intervention effects? Provide a brief overview of the statistical or analytical approach you will use to test the effects of your interventions.
You can read more about how this plan fits within the wider plan system here.