Question

Two teams of researchers, " Team A and Team B"are investigating the question, " is there evidence that eating oatmeal cause lower blood cholesterol level ? Both team gather larger random sanple of study participants. What is the explanatory variable / response variable? Team A asks each study participants to record how many days they eat oat meal for a month , at the beginning and the end of the month , they measure each participants blood cholesterol. Is team A conducting an experiment or an observation study ? Explain why ?

Answer 1

Answer:In the scenario described, the explanatory variable is the independent variable, and the response variable is the dependent variable.

Explanatory Variable: The explanatory variable is the one that the researchers manipulate or control to see its effect on the other variable. In this case, it is whether or not the participants eat oatmeal. Team A asks participants to record how many days they eat oatmeal for a month.

Response Variable: The response variable is the one that the researchers measure to see how it is affected by the explanatory variable. In this case, it is the participants' blood cholesterol levels. Team A measures the participants' blood cholesterol levels at the beginning and end of the month.

Now, regarding whether Team A is conducting an experiment or an observational study:

Experiment: An experiment involves actively manipulating an explanatory variable (in this case, the oatmeal consumption) and observing its effect on the response variable (blood cholesterol levels). In Team A's case, they are actively instructing participants to eat oatmeal for a certain number of days and then measuring the impact on their blood cholesterol levels. Therefore, Team A is conducting an experiment.

In summary, Team A is conducting an experiment to investigate the relationship between oatmeal consumption and blood cholesterol levels. They are actively manipulating the explanatory variable (oatmeal consumption) and observing its effect on the response variable (blood cholesterol levels).