Hi.
There is a psychology question in which there was a study where researchers surveyed patients before and after the medical facility moved to newer and nicer location. The results showed that patients perception of medical staff were significantly improved at the new location. The question asks what the study suggests.
The answer is that the medical staff behavior is a confounding variable.

However, one of the wrong answer choices is that "the research could determine that the new environment is directly responsible for the improvement of patients perception of staff."
I'm wondering why this choice is wrong. I would think that since the independent variable was manipulated we could say that X causes Y.

Hi there, the line, "The results showed that patients perception of medical staff were significantly improved at the new location" shows that it's a confounding variable, since results differed based on perception of medical staff.