Proceduredependent

Proceduredependent (often written as procedure-dependent) is an adjective used to describe outcomes, measurements, or conclusions that vary with the specific procedure used to obtain them. It distinguishes effects arising from the observation method from those that reflect the underlying phenomenon being studied.

Usage and scope: The term appears across disciplines such as clinical research, laboratory science, imaging, manufacturing, and social sciences. It emphasizes that observed variation may result from protocol choices, instrumentation, reagents, operator technique, or data-processing steps, rather than true differences in the object of study.

Causes and characteristics: Procedure dependence can stem from calibrations, thresholds, assay sensitivity, imaging resolution, sampling methods, or data handling. It can affect measurements such as reaction rates, diagnostic classifications, feature sizes, and quality metrics. Recognizing procedure dependence helps researchers distinguish methodological effects from substantive signals.

Implications and mitigation: Procedure-dependent results can limit comparability across studies and hinder reproducibility. Addressing this requires thorough documentation of procedures, use of standardized or validated protocols, cross-validation with multiple procedures, calibration against reference standards, and statistical approaches that model procedure as a factor (for example, mixed-effects models) or normalize results to a common baseline.

Examples: In medical imaging, different MRI sequences can produce different lesion sizes; in clinical chemistry, assay kits from different manufacturers may yield systematically different concentrations; in psychology, task administration variations can influence observed effects.

See also: standardization, calibration, replication, cross-validation, meta-analysis.