Just starting a psychology course, distance learning.

Please explain the difference between a confounding variable and an extraneous variable.

Thanks.

Mary Rohn

-- Mary Rohn (mrohn@onlinetel.ca), January 15, 2004

Answers

You will find a interesting essay on the topic at: http://web.umr.edu/~psyworld/experimental/extraneous_variables.htm Accoring to the author, extraneous variables are ones that introduce unwanted error into an experiment. A confounding variable is a particularly nasty kind of extraneous variable -- viz., one that intoduces *systematic* error into the results, making the outcome difficult to interpret.

-- Christopher Green (christo@yorku.ca), January 16, 2004.