Adding the clinical framing, because it changes how the question reads. Order of operations matters more than any single choice here: establish a baseline, change one thing, wait long enough for it to express itself, then measure again under the same conditions.
That is the short version; the long version is somebody else's post.
BiostatsBrad said:If you are going to change something, change one thing and give it long enough to express itself.
Coming at BiostatsBrad’s question from a different direction. The mechanism and the magnitude are separate questions. Agreeing that something happens says nothing about whether it happens enough to act on.
I would rather be corrected than agreed with, if it comes to it.
One concrete data point for the thread. One habit that pays for itself: post the method alongside the number. A figure without its method cannot be checked, and an unchecked figure is how this community accumulates folklore.
Happy to go further on any of that.
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Shop Reference StandardsA narrower follow-up, since the general answer is now clear:
What would you measure differently if you were starting again?
Moderator note: leaving this open. It is being argued well and the disagreement is the useful part. Tagging this one for the weekly digest.