Question

A medical researcher is very interested in which of two new drugs is better in treating high blood pressure. She asks 60 men with high blood pressure to join the experiment and then she assigns each to a group of 30. She gives one group the first drug and the other group the other drug. What is the independent variable and what is the dependent variable in this study? Why?

Answer 1

The medical researcher selected 60 men to take part in her study. So our sample size is 60.

Research question

The researcher wants to ascertain the effectiveness of two Drugs A and B, in treating high blood pressure.

The 60 men are randomly assigned to two groups of 30 each. So, she wants to predict the effect of the kind of DRUG (either A or B), on the high blood pressure of the person.

So the indicator variable i.e. whether the Drug is A or B is the independent variable because that is what the researcher controls.

and the resulting high blood pressure of the person is the dependent variable, because it is dependent on the type of drug being administered

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