A confounding variable is devastating to an experimental design because it
Whilst it is easy to say that a confounding variable is an extraneous variable that could provide an alternative explanation for our results, what do we actually mean by this? An extraneous variable becomes a confounding variable when the extraneous variable changes systematically along with the independent variable(s) that you are studying. There are two components to this: COMPONENT #1: There must be three or more variables involved and COMPONENT #2: These variables must change systematically with each other. Each is discussed in turn: Show COMPONENT #1 |