Do men with children tend to live longer than men without children? To investigate, a group of students at Cal Poly randomly sampled men from the obituaries page on the San Luis Obispo Tribune’s webpage between June and November 2012. For each man selected, they noted the age at which the person died and number of children under “survived by.”

a. Identify the explanatory variable in this study. Also classify this variable as categorical or quantitative.

b. Identify the response variable in this study. Also classify this variable as categorical or quantitative.

c. Below is a set of dotplots displaying the data from the students’ study. Based on the dotplots, is there any indication of an association between the explanatory variable and the response variable? Explain how you are deciding.

d. Identify a confounding variable that provides an alternative explanation for the overall higher lifetime values among men who have children, compared to those who don’t.