There must be at least two values attributed to a variable. For instance, 'male' and 'female' are the standard values attributed to the variable 'sex', even though sophisticated entities such as AIDS Project Los Angeles frequently are sensitive to additional values such as 'transgender'. Independent variables may account for changes in the value of the dependent variable. Independent variables, recognized generally as demographic information such as sex or ethnicity, are those variables that are generally not influenced or caused by other variables. For example, a researcher may be interested to test the hypothesis that one's sex is associated with adherence to one's HIV medications.
Adherence is the dependent variable.
One may never miss their medications, sometimes miss their medications, or always miss their medications. It is used as a dependent variable because an individual's response may depend upon their sex, ethnicity, age, or a number of other independent variables. The arithmetic average obtained by adding up all the scores and dividing by the total number of scores. The p-value indicates the probability that the result obtained in a statistical test is due to chance rather than a true relationship between measures. Small p-values indicate that it is very unlikely that the results were due to chance.