confound refers to any factor occurring in a study that makes the results uninterpretable because its effects cannot be separated from those of the variables being studied.
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Confound refers to an uncontrolled variable that affects our dependent variable. Confound is also called a Confounding variable. It refers to any factor occurring in a study that makes the results uninterpretable because its effects cannot be separated from those of the variables being studied; situation in which extraneous variables are not controlled or cannot be shown to exist equally in one's experimental and control groups. When there is a confound, one cannot attribute changes in the dependent variable to the manipulation of the independent variable.