What is a confounding variable?
A confounding variable in statistics is an ‘extra’ or ‘third’ variable that is associated with both the dependent variable and the independent variable, and it can give a wrong estimate that provides useless results.
For example, if we are studying the effect of weight gain, then lack of workout will be the independent variable, and weight gain will be the dependent variable. In this case, the amount of food consumption can be the confounding variable as it will mask or distort the effect of other variables in the study. The effect of weather can be another confounding variable that may later the experiment design.
