Question

A new fever-reducing medication is administered to patients with body temperatures exceeding 38 degrees centigrade. The medication is administered in doses of 1,2,3 or 4 pills every six hour-intervals. The experimenter takes the patient's temperature every six hours.

a. What is the explanatory variable?

b. What is the response variable?

c. What is the range of explanatory variable?

d. What is the range of the response variable?

e. Is either variable quantitative? Explain.

f. Is it reasonable for the two variables to have a cause-and-effect relationship? Explain.

Answer 1

a. Explanatory variable is "Dose of medication administered every six hour-intervals".

b.Response variable is "Patient's Temperature"

c. Range of explanatory variable is {1,2,3,4}.

d. Reasonable Range of Response variable is 0 to 100 degree centigrade.

e. Yes, both the variables are quantitative because Temperature is certainly quantitative and Dose of medication is also quantitative.

f. Yes, in this case, it is reasonable to assume that the two variables have a cause-and-effect relationship because the dose of the drug administered will detrmine the decrease in patient temperature. The drug would have been discovered with this particular objective in mind.

Dear student,

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