Question

The table below gives the results from some recent national polls asking U.S. registered voters who they would vote for in a hypothetical race between President Trump and Joe Biden. “RV” stands for registered voters. Questions 5-7 use this information.

You would like to conduct a follow-up study investigating whether men and women differ in their plans to vote for Biden. In this follow-up study, which of the following would be the response and explanatory variables?

a. Response variable: respondent sex; Explanatory variable: Plan to vote for Biden

b. Response variable: Plan to vote for Biden; Explanatory variable: respondent sex

c. Can’t tell from the information provided

Answer 1

Here, based on the respondent's sex, we are trying to conduct a study whether men and women differ in their plans to vote for Biden, therefore based on the gender of we are trying to conclude about the variable that defines the plan to vote for Biden.

Therefore the independent variable or the explanatory variable here is the respondent sex, while the dependent variable or the response variable here is the plan to vote for Biden. Therefore B is the correct answer here.