Variable Question

[scibudadmin]

I received an email from a student with a question about variables. She isn't able to register on AAE but she can read your responses without registering. Here is her question as she stated it to me:

I have a burning question concerning indep vs dep variables....if you have a population of brain damaged patients, and want to test the reliability of a new 'level of consciousness' scale on them, which of these two are the indep and dep variables? My own thoughts are that the patients are the indep. var.s and the scale is the dep variable.

Thanks,
Desiree

Thanks for your help!
Melissa G.
Science Buddies Staff

[MelissaB]

Actually, you're not doing an experimental manipulation so you don't technically have both dependent and independent variables.

What you would have is some measurement of reliability--I'm not sure whether this would be comparing the new scale to an old scale that's proven to be reliable or to some independent measurement of reliability. Either way, you'd want to do a comparison of means--assuming your data is normally distributed, this means a t-test of some sort (possibly paired, if you're comparing levels from the same patient on two different scales).

I'd need to know more to give a better answer!

[scibudadmin]

MelissaB,

I just wanted to say thank you on behalf of the student. She emailed me and said your response helped and she doesn't have additonal questions at this time.

So thank you!

Regards,
Melissa G.
Science Buddies Staff.