After watching the Superbowl, Steve is convinced that the referees are often bli
ID: 3458338 • Letter: A
Question
After watching the Superbowl, Steve is convinced that the referees are often blind, blowing calls that greatly influence teams’ chances of winning. To test his idea, Steve chooses ten NFL teams at random and watches every single game in a season for those ten teams. He records the number of blown calls going against each team (regardless of whether he is a fan of the team!). He also records the winning percentages of each of those ten teams at the end of the season. He is most interested in knowing whether the number of blown calls going against each team predicts those teams’ winning percentages. Using Steve’s dataset below, provide your hand calculations to answer the questions that follow.
What is the independent variable? What is the dependent variable? WHY?
Explanation / Answer
Blown call is independent variable.
Winning percentage of the team is dependent variable.
The probability of the team’s win depends on the number of blown calls from the referee because it psychologically affects the team’s performance. A dependent variable is the one which could be increased or decreased (winning in this case) by changing the amount or frequency of the independent variable (the bad decisions in this case). The lesser the blown calls, the more the chance of winning and the more the blown calls, the lesser the chance of winning.