Let's assume you are conducting an experiment to determine the effect of a new drug on the incidence of epileptic seizures. You select 20 epileptics from the 150 epileptics being treated at a nearby hospital and administer the drug to them. You record the number of seizures in each of the 20 subjects for one month. The number of seizures for each of the 20 subjects constitutes _________.
A) the dependent variable
B) data
C) a statistic
D) the independent variable

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The number of seizures for each of the 20 subjects is data because it is the information that is being collected and analyzed in the experiment. The dependent variable would be the incidence of epileptic seizures, but this is not represented by the data collected from the 20 subjects. The independent variable would be the new drug being administered to the subjects, but again, this is not the information being recorded as data. A statistic would be a summary measure calculated from the data, but the individual number of seizures for each subject is not a statistic.

Let's Assume You Are Conducting an Experiment to Determine the Effect