Friday, January 20, 2012

What is an independent and dependent variable?

I don't understand the difference.

The independent variable is the one that doesn't change while the dependent variable is the one that changes.

Right? I always get these confused.What is an independent and dependent variable?
the independent variable you can decide which one is it. the dependent variable is a consecuence of the independen variable.



just think about candies. you can buy 7 candies by 1 dollar, so you could get an expresion like this



y = 7x



x is independent and y is dependent. if you have 5 dollars, but you decide spend just 2 dollars, so you get 14 candies. so x is independent because you decide what is this value. y is dependent because it is the result of what you decide as amount for independent variable.
Science lesson time! YAY! ok, so the independent variable is a variable that is changed in your experiment. For example,if your doing a expirement to see how food effects a racer's time, the independent variable is the food, because you just change that for the experiment. The dependant variable is what changes depending on the independent variable. In the example mentioned earlier it would be the racers time because it deends on what the racer had to eat



*note* this example was not tested nor do i know if food actually effects the time it's just a random exampleWhat is an independent and dependent variable?
The simplest way to answer the question would be to use the terms from the question itself.



The independent variable is what it says it is. It is independent. Its value is arbitrary, it could be anything you want it to be.



The dependent variable is what you are trying to test. It depends on the value of the independent variable.



For example, if you wanted to see how SAT scores affect college grades, you would have two variables:



1. SAT scores

2. College GPA



Lets say you make a hypothesis saying that there is a positive correlation between SAT scores and college GPA. That is to say that a student whose SAT scores are higher than average is likely to do better than average in college and a student who scores lower than average on the SAT is likely to do worse than average in college.



Now, just think about what depends on what. Your SAT scores do not depend on your college grades. You are way past SAT when you are in college.It is the other way round.



Thus, in our little thought experiment, the SAT score is the independent variable and the college grade is the dependent variable.What is an independent and dependent variable?
A change in the magnitude of the independent variable results in a change in the dependent variable.



Typically, in an experiment (for example) the independent variable is the one an experimenter has control over (how hard you press the gas pedal) and the magnitude of the dependent variable (how fast the car goes) "depends" on the magnitude of the independent variable.
you have it right , I always just try and remember that whatever is along the x-axis is independant and whatever is on the y-axis is dependant
Yup, you're right.
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