STAT 301 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Pepsi Challenge, Confounding, Sampling Bias
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This is the variable whose behavior we want to explain, or whose value we want to predict. Sometimes called the independent variable, or explanatory variable. Covariates are predictor variables that are not of primary scientific interest, but are thought to be related to the response variable. Won"t be using this concept in this class. Children"s height is the response variable. (dependent variable) This is because a child"s height is dependent on the parent"s height. Parents" height is the predictor variable. (independent variable/explanatory variable) This is because the parent"s height affects the child"s height. Also could affect height, but not directly because of the parents" height. Statistics are usually done in two ways: an observational study, and a controlled experiment. Observational studies involve observing a variable, but not influencing the tests. In a controlled experiment the researcher gets assign members of the study to different groups. The groups are then subjected to different experimental conditions.
