
Scenario: A certain experiment is designed to measure the volume of 1 mole of helium gas at a variety of different temperatures, while keeping the gas pressure constant at 758 torr: Temperature (K) Please note that although Excel can fit curves to nonlinear data sets, this form of analysis is usually not as accurate as linear regression. In particular, students will learn to use Excel in order to explore a number of linear graphical relationships. In this exercise, the spreadsheet program Microsoft Excel © will be used for this purpose. This indicates that the dependent variable (arm span) depends on the person’s height.\]Ĭomputer spreadsheets are powerful tools for manipulating and graphing quantitative data. You can draw a “best fit” line through the points. To answer this question, you plot a graph with the independent variable along the x-axis and the dependent variable along the y-axis. Is a change in the independent variable related to a change in the dependent variable? Then you measure their arm spans (the dependent variable). You collect a sample of people and measure their heights (the independent variable). The dependent variables are the properties that change when the independent variables change.įor example, you want to find out if you can use a person’s height to determine arm span. The independent variables are the ones that are tested to see if they are the cause. These changing quantities are the variables.


Scientists try to determine if a change to one property causes something else to change in a predictable way. Dependent variables are properties that change in response to a change in another property.
