Question

What is the Independent variable in the following scenario: Your mom tells you that eating breakfast will help you do better in school. To see if she is right, you eat a bowl of cereal with fresh fruit in it for breakfast for one month. For the next month, you skip breakfast altogether. At the end of each month, you record your grades in all your classes to see if she was right.

Answer 1

General category: Biology.

Sub-category: Scientific method

Topic: Independent and dependent variables

Introduction:

A dependent variable represents a quantity whose value depends on how the independent variable is changed.

Step-by-step explanation:

According to the statement of the problem, we have that

the hypothesis would be:

Eating breakfast improves grades.

This means that the notes vary with respect to eating breakfast or not (breakfast consumption). Therefore, the notes depend on whether the individual had breakfast or not. This means that grades are the dependent variable and the independent variable is breakfast consumption.

Notice that the variable breakfast consumption has as possible values: the individual had breakfast or the individual did not have breakfast.

We can conclude that the correct answer is:

Answer:

The independent variable is:

breakfast consumption

where this variable has the possible values:

- the individual had breakfast or

- the individual did not have breakfast.