University of Phoenix Material

Week Four Homework Exercise

Answer the following questions, covering material from Ch 8-10 of Methods in Behavioral Research:

1. What is a confounding variable and why do researchers try to eliminate confounding variables? Provide two examples of confounding variables.

Confounding variables are the variables that have an effect on things, or cause the

problem. Researchers would try to eliminate the confounding variable, because this is the

variable that is causing the problem in the experiment that they may be studying (Cozby,

2009). One example would be if conducting a controlled experiment the researcher may find

that within a control group that if the participants are allowed to watch television for X amount

of hours then they are more...