Identifying Variables

What is the DEPENDENT variable (effect) in this research?

Does eating breakfast improve test scores?

• Whether the participant ate breakfast

• Time the participant ate breakfast

• The grade secured in the test

• The number of tests a participant took

Sara wants to see whether drinking coffee will improve productivity. What is the INDEPENDENT variable (cause) in this research?

• Increase in productivity

• Brand of Coffee

• Whether the participant had coffee or not

• The times the participant had coffee

Taha had heard his relatives talking about the effects of chewing sugar-free gum on memory. He decided to conduct an experiment. What would the operationalized DEPENDENT variable be for his research?

• Score on a Sequence-Recall memory test

• Psychometric Testing to assess learning styles

• Quantity of consumption of sugar-free gum pellets per day

• Asking participants about their fondest childhood memories

Which of the following are characteristics of variables in general?

• Liable to change

• We can only have independent and dependent variables

• Cannot be controlled

• Are not always numerical

Research questions look at the impact of _________ on _________

• Extraneous Variables, Dependent Variable

• Independent Variable, Extraneous Variables

• Dependent Variable, Independent Variable

• Independent Variable, Dependent Variable

What are extraneous variables?

• They are random variables

• Extraneous variables are not controlled and can obscure the effect of the independent variable making the results difficult to interpret

• Extraneous variables bypass the independent variable

• Extraneous variables imply that the independent variable definitely causes the dependent variable

In a controlled experiment there is a greater chance of a relationship of _____________ between the IV and DV; because the impact of extraneous variables is minimized.

• Relatedness

• Causality

• Correlation

• Significance

Choose all the appropriate traits of variables

• Mutually exclusive

• Exhaustive

• Descriptive

• Significant

What is operationalization?

• When you perform an operation on a variable

• When you divide one variable into multiple variables

• When you add age ranges

• Putting a variable in measurable format

Dr. X does a study with three groups of ten students each. Each group consumes a different amount of caffeine (high, medium, and low amounts). Dr. X then measures all of the students on how well they do on a concentration test. What is the INDEPENDENT variable in this study?

• The students

• Number of Students in each group

• The total number of participants

• Levels of Caffeine