RESEARCH VARIABLES

AYO NELSON
BPH
LESSON OBJECTIVES

• Introduction and definition

• Classification/ Types
 VARIABLES

• Are “changing qualities or characteristics” of persons or

things like age, gender, intelligence, ideas, achievements,
confidence, and so on that are involved in your research
study.
• Made up of the root or base word “vary” which means to
undergo changes or to differ from, variables have different
or varying values in relation to time and situation.
 VARIABLES

• Characteristics that has two or more mutually exclusive values or

properties” (Sevilla and Other, 1988)

• Bernard (1994), something that can take more than one value, and
values can be words or numbers

• Refers to characteristics, or attribute of an individual or an

organization that can be measured or observed and that varies
among the people or organization being studied (Creswell, 2002)
VARIABLES…….

• In summary, variables are qualities, properties, or

characteristics of person, things, or situations that
change or vary. It may change from group to
group, person to person, or even within one
person over time. There are six common variable
 Types of variables

• Variables are classified based on their nature, actions, and effects

on the variables.
• Dependent variables
• Independent variables
• Intervening variables
• Moderator variables
• Control variables
• Extraneous variables
 Independent variables
• The cause in a presumed cause and effect relationship or
those that probably cause, influence, or affect outcomes
• They are invariably called treatment, manipulated,
antecedent or predictor variables
• The one responsible for the conditions that act on something
else to bring about changes
• May be introduced and manipulated by the researcher
(experimental variable)
• May be naturally occurring.
• May be under the control of the study’s participants.
 CONTROL VARIABLES

• Special types of independent variables that are measured

in the study because they potentially influence the
dependent variable
• They may be demographic or personal variables that
need to be “controlled” so that the true influence of the
independent variable on the dependent variable can be
determined
 Dependent variables

• Also called outcome variable

• Those that depend on the independent

variables; they are the outcomes or results of
the influence of the independent variable
 Examples

•The effects of classroom temperature in the

academic performance of the students.
Independent: classroom temperature
Dependent: academic performance of the
students
 Extraneous variables
• Extraneous variable are any variables that you are not intentionally
studying in your experiment or test.
• These are undesirable variables that might influence the outcome of
an experiment.
• These variables are to be controlled by the experimenter. But if they
do not give in to your control, they become confounding variables that
can strongly influence your study.
• The extraneous variables exist as “nuisance variables,” whose potency
need to go down to prevent it from affecting the results negatively.
• Extraneous variables are primary concern in quantitative studies
because they can interfere with obtaining a clear understanding of the
relational or causal dynamics within these studies.
 Confounding variable
• A confounding variable (or confounder) is a special type of
extraneous variable.

• Confounding occurs when the association between an independent

and dependent variable (cause and effect relationship) is either
partly or completely due to a third factor that is not a part of the
experiment.

• Confounders are related to the independent variable and have a

known independent causal effect on the dependent variable
An example of confounding

• Caffeine consumption during pregnancy

Cigarette smoking

• Low birthweight infant

Examples:
You want to know if online learning increases student understanding of
statistics. One group uses an online knowledge base to study, the other
group uses a traditional text.
• Extraneous variable: Prior knowledge of statistics.
Does high school achievement influence the academic achievement of
university students?
• Extraneous variable: orientation of the students, interests/course
The effects of classroom temperature in the academic performance of
the students.
• Extraneous variable: gender, clothing, adaptation
Intervening variables
• A variable that explains a relation or provides
a causal link between other variables.
• Examples:
The statistical association between income and
longevity.
• “Just having money does not make one live
longer”
• Intervening: Access to healthcare.
Examples
1. The relationship between level of education and
spending.
• The higher a person's level of education, the more
money she or he spends.
• Intervening: Income
2. Does the amount of assets of bank companies
related to the trust of the clients?
• Higher assets increases the trust.
Intervening: stability
Moderating variables
• It is the factor that is measured, manipulated, or selected by the
experimenter to discover whether it modifies the relationship of
the independent variable to an observed phenomenon.

• It functions as the secondary independent variable, and used to

determine if it affects the relationship between the study’s primary
independent variable and its dependent variable.

• It strengthens or weakens the effect of independent variable.

Examples:
• 1. You want to compare the probability of hiring of male and
female applicants in different departments of a certain company.
• Moderating: percentage of male and female in the departments.

• 2. Are children more engaged when taught by a teacher of the

same gender?
• Moderating: teaching style/strategy
 CONTINUOUS VARIABLES

•can take infinite number on the value

that can occur within the population
•values can be divided into fractions

•Examples : age, height, and temperature

 INTERVAL VARIABLES
• Values that lie along an evenly dispersed
range of numbers
• A measurement where the difference between
two values does have meaning
• Examples: temperature, a person’s net worth
 RATIO VARIABLES

• Values that lie along an evenly dispersed

range of numbers when there is absolute zero
• Possesses the properties of interval variable
and has a clear definition of zero, indication
that there is none of that variable
• Examples: height, weight, and distance
 DISCRETE VARIABLES

• Also known as categorical or classificatory

variable
• Any variable that has limited number of distinct
values and which cannot be divided into
fractions like sex, blood group, and number of
children in family
 NOMINAL VARIABLE

• Represent categories that cannot be ordered in any

particular way
• Has two or more categories but does not imply
ordering of cases
• Examples: eye color, business type, religion, biological
sex, political affiliation, basketball fan affiliation,
ORDINAL VARIABLE

• Represent categories that can be ordered from

greatest to smallest
• Examples: education level, income brackets
 Relationship among Variables

• Once the variables relevant to the topic of research have been

identified, then the researcher is interested in the relationship among
them.
• A statement containing the variable is called a proposition. It may
contain one or more than one variable.
• The proposition having one variable in it may be called as univariate
proposition, those with two variables as bivariate proposition, and
then of course multivariate containing three or more variables.