depenent and independent variables

[dizzylizzy]

How can I tell if something is an independent or dependent variable?

for example is Labor Force an IV or DV?
Marital Status an IV or DV?
Race an IV or DV?
Education an IV or DV?

[paulsdecarli]

That is an excellent question! Take the simple equation:
y= x^2 (that's one way to write x-squared, for example in an EXCELL spreadsheet, when you don't have superscripts). One could say that x is the independent variable, because if one picks a value of x, then one can calculate y.

What if we write x= SQRT(y) ? SQRT (y) is another way (the EXCELL way) of writing "the square root of y". It looks as if we are saying that y is the independent variable here.

Get it?

The independent variable is whichever one we say it is. If you think that one thing (call it x) depends on another (call it y). and you want to determine the relationship between x and y, then vary y (the independent variable) and measure x (the dependent variable). If you decided to vary x and measure y, which would be perfectly all right in many cases, then y would be the dependent variable.

[trevbang]

That really depends on what you are experimenting with. For example if you are trying to find if one's Marital status affects one's education level. Marital Status would be the independent variable and Education would be the dependant variable. If you want to find if having and education affects one's marital status then Education would be Independant and Marital Status would be dependant.

In other words. The independant variable is what you are controlling in your experiment. The dependant variable is what you are observing in your results.