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Statistics vocabulary · Regression and Correlation

Control for

Meaning in statistics, with examples

phrasal verbCore term

In statistics, control for means: To remove or account for the influence of a variable in an analysis, usually by including it in a model, so that the effect of interest is not mixed up with it.

In Turkish: kontrol etmek, etkisini sabit tutmak, düzeltmek

How it is used

Extremely common in results sections: 'after controlling for age and income…', 'controlling for baseline scores…'. 'Adjust for' is a close synonym, especially in medicine. Controlling for measured variables does not remove confounders that were never measured.

Example sentences

  1. After controlling for age and income, the effect of education was much smaller.

  2. Did you control for the time of day when comparing the two machines?

Common collocations

  • control for age
  • after controlling for
  • adjust for confounders
  • statistically control for
  • confounding variableA third variable that is related to both the independent and the dependent variable and can create a false or distorted impression of the relationship between them.
  • multiple regressionA regression model with two or more predictor variables, used to estimate the effect of each one while holding the others constant.
  • regressionA family of methods for modelling how an outcome variable changes with one or more predictor variables, used both to explain relationships and to make predictions.
  • causationA relationship in which a change in one variable directly produces a change in another, as opposed to the two simply moving together.

More terms: Regression and Correlation

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