Chapter I

NATURE OF INQUIRY AND

RESEARCH
 Lesson 3:
Kinds of Variables
and Their Uses
Research Variable
- is a factor that can be manipulated and
measured
- anything that has a quantity or quality that
varies
- Variables are among the fundamental
concepts of research, alongside with
measurement, validity, reliability, cause
and effect and theory.
Examples:
Quantifiable factors:Time or weight
Inherently changeable: Gender, color or country
Most Common Variables in Social Research:
• Age
• Sex
• Gender
• Education
• Income
• Marital status
• Occupation
Variable agreement might be defined as
having 5 attributes:
• Strongly Disagree
• Disagree
• Neutral
• Agree
• Strongly Agree
 The Nature of Variables and Data
1. Nominal Variables – represent
categories that cannot be ordered in any
particular way.
Examples:
- Biological sex (Male vs. Female)
- Political affiliation
- Basketball fan affiliation
 The Nature of Variables and Data
2. Ordinal Variables – represent
categories that can be ordered from
greatest to smallest.
Examples:
- Education level (Freshman, Sophomore)
(Grade 7, Grade 8)
- Income brackets ( T1- Salary grade 11,
T2 -Salary grade 12)
 The Nature of Variables and Data
3. Interval Variables – have the values
that lie along an evenly dispersed range
of numbers
Examples:
- Temperature
- Person’s Net Worth
(how much money you have when you
subtract your debt from your assets)
 The Nature of Variables and Data
4. Ratio Variables – have values that lie
along an evenly dispersed range of numbers
when there is an absolute zero. Most scores
stemming from response to survey items
are ratio-level values because they typically
cannot go below zero.
Examples:
- opposed to net worth, which can have a
negative debt-to-income ratio-level variable
(you cannot have income or some positive
amount of income).
 Types of Variable
1. Independent Variables
(experimental, treatment, manipulated)
- treatment or intervention
- presumed cause
- causal event that is under investigation
- measured, manipulated, or selected to
determine its relationship to an observed
phenomenon
- stand alone and they are not changed by
the other variables you are trying to measure
 Types of Variable
2. Dependent (outcome or response)
Variables
- observed and measured to determine the
effect of the independent variable
- presumed effect
- factor that appears, disappears, or varies
as the experimenter introduces, removes,
or varies the independent variable
- outcomes or results of the influence of
the independent variable
 Types of Variable
3. Sample Variables
- In some studies, some characteristic of the
participants must be measured for some reason.

- For example, suppose you are investigating whether

servant leadership style affects organizational
performance and successful financial outcomes. In
order to obtain a sample of servant leaders, a
standard test of leadership style will be administered.
So the presence or absence of servant leadership
style will be a sample variable. That score is not
used as an IV or a DV, but simply to get the
appropriate people into the sample.
 Types of Variable
4. Control Variables
- special types of independent variables that
are measured in a study because the
potentially influence the dependent variable.
- researcher use statistical procedure to control
these variables.
- they may be demographic or personal
variables that need to be “controlled” so that
the true influence of the independent variable
on the dependent can be determined.
 Types of Variable
5. Extraneous Variables
- are not of interest to the study but may
influence the dependent variable. For this
reason, most quantitative studies attempt
to control extraneous variables. The
literature should inform you what
extraneous variables to account for.
- There is a special class of extraneous
variables called confounding variables.
 Types of Variable
Confounding Variables
- those that are not actually measured or observed
in a study.
- they exist but their influence cannot be directly
detected in a study.
- researchers comment on the influence of
confounding variables after the study has been
completed, because these variables may have
operated to explain the relationship between the
independent variable and dependent variable, but
they were not or could not be easily assessed.
Identifying the most appropriate variables
is important for multiple reasons:
• Variables provide focus to the study. So if you pick the
wrong ones, the findings of the study may go in a
direction that was not expected by you.
• It is also important to focus on the methods and tools
for measuring the selected variables.
• Picking the wrong ones may also take the findings into
an unintended direction.
• Variables are also useful when you are searching for
other studies (for example in journal articles) that are
similar to yours. Thus, the variables can serve as search
terms.
Identifying the most appropriate variables
is important for multiple reasons:
• Researchers may also find it useful to pretest
their choice of variables to make sure they
provide the expected results.
• During your literature review, spend some time
analyzing the different types of variables used in
the various studies relating to your topic, and
how these choices affected the findings of the
study.
• This process will give you some ideas of different
variables you could use for your study, and will
help you make the most informed choice.