ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Breusch–Pagan test

The Breusch-Pagan test is like a game teachers play to check if all the students in a class are paying attention. Let's pretend your teacher wants to know if everyone in your class is paying attention during math class. She thinks that some students might not be paying attention and might be daydreaming instead, which could affect how well everybody understands math.

To check if the class is paying attention, the teacher conducts a test called the Breusch-Pagan test. This test takes a look at how much you and your classmates know and also how much you differ from one another in terms of understanding math.

Just like the teacher in the class, the Breusch-Pagan test checks how much things differ from each other. It checks to see if everyone in the class learned the material in the same way or if some kids understood it better or worse than others.

If your teacher finds out that most of the students in your class have similar levels of understanding, then she will assume that the class has been paying attention and understood the lesson well. If, on the other hand, there are many differences in how well you and your classmates understand, then she might guess that some of you weren't listening or paying much attention in class.

The Breusch-Pagan test is really the same idea, but for grown-ups and their data. By looking at how much different data points vary, the test can figure out if the data is all from the same place or if some of it differs a lot from the rest. If things are all similar, then that means the data is consistent, but if it's all over the place, then the test will let people know that they need to double-check their numbers.