Exercise 9.4 provides regression output for the full model, including all explanatory variables available in the data set, for predicting the number of days absent from school. In this exercise we consider a forward-selection algorithm and add variables to the model one-at-a-time. The table below shows the p-value and adjusted R² of each model where we include only the corresponding predictor. Based on this table, which variable should be added to the model first?

Data from Exercise 9.4

Researchers interested in the relationship between absenteeism from school and certain demographic characteristics of children collected data from 146 randomly sampled students in rural New South Wales, Australia, in a particular school year. Below are three observations from this data set.

The summary table below shows the results of a linear regression model for predicting the average number of days absent based on ethnic background (eth: 0 - aboriginal, 1 - not aboriginal), sex (sex: 0 - female, 1 - male), and learner status (lrn: 0 - average learner, 1 - slow learner).

variable ethnicity p-value 0.0007 Radj sex 0.3142 0.0714 0.0001 learner status 0.5870 0