Question

Imagine that you wish to compare two different diets that will be fed to tadpoles raised in a lab. One diet is a meat-based fish food, and the other is the traditional diet of boiled lettuce. You want to see if the meat-based diet will be associated with an increase in the average weight of the tadpoles. In your experiment you keep all other factors, such as tadpole density per pan, temperature, pH, and the amount of food the same. The only difference between your control and experimental groups is the type of food the tadpoles receive. What is the independent variable for the tadpole diet experiment?

Answer 1

Answer:

TYPE OF DIET

Explanation:

Independent variable of an experiment is that variable that is subject to manipulation or changing by the experimenter in order to effect a response in the dependent variable.

According to the experiment in this question, the type of diet is changed for different groups of tadpoles in order to see the effect on their average weight. Based on this, the independent/manipulated variable is the TYPE OF DIET administered to each group of tadpole while the growth (average weight) of the tadpoles is the dependent variable.