Research Variables
Variables are any characteristic or attribute of a person or an object which may be affected by an experience, events, or phenomenon being studied. It changes or “varies”, but basically can be measured either quantitatively or qualitatively. They may be classified as:
- Independent Variables: the “cause of the study”; the variable that is manipulated in an experimental research and greatly influences the dependent variable.
- Dependent Variables: the “effect or response of the study”; the variable that is being influenced by the independent variable.
- Extraneous/Confounding/Intervening Variables: variables that may affect the study, but the researcher does not choose to control.
Variables may be expressed or related in various forms:
- Proposition: an assertion of the relationship between concepts.
- Construct: a set of concepts which can be subjected to empirical testing.
- Model: a symbolic representation of phenomena. It symbolizes some aspects of reality, concrete or abstract, by means of likeness which may be structural, diagrammatic, pictorial, or mathematical (Bush, 1979).
- Assumption: assertions which are held to be true but has not been scientifically tested or proven. It is often merely based on common sense or basic reasoning.