Definitions for "Confounding factor"
Factors independent of a public intervention which are partly or entirely the cause of changes observed among beneficiaries (gross effects). A confounding factor can hinder or amplify an expected impact. For example, employment increased by 10% in a group of assisted firms. However, this increase could not be imputed entirely to the public intervention because the assisted firms also benefited from a favourable macro-economic context (confounding factor). In another example, close to 80% of the trainees found a job after one year. However, this high placement rate was partly imputable to the initial qualifications of the trainees which were very high at the time of their recruitment (skimming-off effect). When a causality analysis is carried out as part of an evaluation, it distinguishes between effects imputable to the public intervention (net effects) and those imputable to confounding factors. Related Terms: Concurrent factor, Extraneous factor, Exogenous factor BACK
an independent variable that distorts the association between another independent variable and the problem under study, as it is related to both
an variable which is related to one or more of the variables defined in a study