Research design

Confounder

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What does it mean?

A confounder can act as a common cause that distorts the association between an exposure and outcome. Causal ordering matters; a mediator on the pathway from exposure to outcome is different.

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An everyday example

Students taking extra classes have higher marks. If prior motivation affects both attendance and achievement, the entire difference cannot be attributed to extra classes.

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True or false?

Every third variable associated with both variables must be a confounder.

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Sources and further reading

Explore the foundations and methodological details in these resources. Examples on this page were created for illustration.