An investigator was interested in studying the effect of taking a course in child development on attitudes toward childrearing. At the end of the semester, the researcher distributed a questionnaire to students who had taken the child development course. Questionnaires were also given to an equal number of students who had not taken the course. The students who had taken the child development course had different attitudes than the students who had not taken the course (e.g., they had more positive attitudes about having large families).

what is the independent and dependent variables?
what are the levels of independent variable?
identify one confounding variable?

1. Identify the independent variable(s)

- being in the child development course

2. Identify the dependent variable(s)

- the attitudes of the students

3. Identify the confounding variable(s)

- those who had taken the course (more positive attitudes)

- those who had not taken the course

- self-selection, no randomization

4. Propose a method to “unconfound” the experiment

- We should start the experiment by randomizing which students do and do not take the course. Then we should provide the questionnaire before the students have taken the child development class and then provide the same questionnaire again after they have taken the class and see if the student's attitudes have changed. Students may have certain beliefs that play a factor in their answers on the questionnaire.

Identify the independent variable(s).

Child development course

Identify the dependent variable(s).
Attitudes towards child rearing

Identify any confounding variable(s).
Possible confounding variables are each individual's experiences of family dynamic/structure that could be of influence.

Confounding can happen from those that hadn't taken the course, external life factors of influences and also those that took the child development course.

There methods for getting to the results, the questionnaire should be given to students before and after the course.

Also, what are the demographics other than both groups of students? This could be a 3rd variable that is influencing the results. By demographics meaning: race, gender, marital status, income, and employment.

Also maybe a bias of self selection .

Propose a method to "unconfound" the experiment.
I think there should be a question before the course to see what their attitudes really are, so the results can be as accurate as possible. How many attitudes changed solely from taking the course, maybe some of those people who took the course already had those positive attitudes.

Also, Since the investigator/ researcher is only surveying college students only two demographics are for sure the same, but maybe all other demographics don't need to be the same because he's not mentioning all other demographics, only narrowed down to college students.

Or instead of trying to make sure demographics are equal in both groups between the ones who took the course and one who did not. I think a type of randomized sampling would be best, and that would eliminate self selection bias.

Well, the independent variable in this study is the child development course. It's the variable that is being manipulated by the investigator to see if it has an effect on attitudes toward childrearing. The dependent variable, on the other hand, is the attitudes toward childrearing. It's the variable that is being measured to see if it is influenced by taking the child development course.

As for the levels of the independent variable, there are basically two: those who took the child development course and those who did not.

Now, one potential confounding variable in this study could be prior knowledge or experience with childrearing. It's possible that some students who haven't taken the child development course might still have some knowledge or experience that could influence their attitudes. To minimize the impact of this confounding variable, the investigator could randomly assign students to either take the course or not, so that any prior knowledge or experience is evenly distributed among the groups.

The independent variable in this study is whether or not the students took the child development course. It is considered independent because it is manipulated or controlled by the researcher.

The dependent variable is the attitudes toward childrearing. It is dependent because it is expected to be influenced by the independent variable.

The levels of the independent variable in this study are "took the child development course" and "did not take the child development course". These are the two different conditions or groups that the participants are divided into.

A possible confounding variable in this study could be the prior knowledge or exposure to child development topics. If the students who took the child development course already had some knowledge or exposure to child development before the course, it could influence their attitudes toward childrearing regardless of actually taking the course. This confounding variable could impact the results and make it difficult to determine if the course itself caused the change in attitudes.

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