Regression toward the Mean: Its Etiology, Diagnosis, and Treatment

This pa per ex plores the phe nom e non of “re gres sion to ward the mean.” The pri mary ef fect of this is to af fect scores on re test ing so that they are closer to the pop u la tion mean. Thus, peo ple who are se lected for in clu sion in a study be cause their scores on some mea sure are above (or be low) some cri te rion have val ues on re test ing that are less ex treme. This may make it ap pear that the study par tic i pants have im proved; this will oc cur even in the ab sence of an ef fec tive in te r ven tion. We ex plore the rea sons for r egres sion to ward the mean and how it can be de tected and dis cuss some meth ods that may min i mi ze its ef fects.

Regression toward the Mean: Its Etiology, Diagnosis, and Treatment Journal Articles