Consider a medical study that is being performed to test the effect of smoking on lung cancer. Two groups of subjects are identi
fied; one group has lung cancer and the other one doesn't. Both are asked to fill out a questionnaire containing questions about their age, gender and occupation. What is the response variable
The response variable is lung cancer. From the question we are testing to find out what effect smoking has on lung cancer. Therefore lung cancer is our response variable.
Another name for the response variable is the dependent variable. And it is the variable that we are testing for. This variable would respond to changes that are being made to the independent variable.