How would you differentiate independent variables from dependent variables? - Answers

The independent variable is the variable that you are curious about, and that you are going to change is some systematic way in an experiment to see what affect your changes make. What you check, to see if there are differences, is the dependent variable. According to your hypothesis, the values of the dependent variable will 'depend' on how you manipulate the independent variable. You want to know the effect of growing plants under different colors of light. You want to know how different colors of light (the variable you will manipulate) will affect plant growth (the dependent variable). You will want to use several controls, too. For example, if you try the above but you use several different kinds of plant, of different ages, in different soils and temperatures and different amounts of water, and different lengths of exposure to light (some sunlight, some 'full-spectrum lamps', etc) your experiment will be without value, except as a lesson in how not to do it!