This one is stumping me

[Wulfie]

i am not one to usually ask for specific answers, but this one is really muddy in my mind.

here is the problem:

identify the dependent and independent variables for each statement.

statement:

a research to find out the correlation between the average times spent in the lab each week and course grade for students

i understand that the dependent variable relies on the independent, but in the above statement, i cannot determine an independent variable.

i am thinking that the dependent is the correlation and the statement has 2 independent, that is the time in lab and the course grade, but it is very muddy to me.

any help is greatly appreciated.

[NewJersey51]

I am not exactly sure if this is the best way to answer these types of questions, but it has always worked for me. I just reword the statment in this format ".....depends on...."

So, for your example I would say that the researcher is trying to determine if "student's grades depend on the amount of time they spend in labs" making Course Grades the dependent variable and time spent in labs the independent variable.

Try applying that ".....depends on...." statment to other examples and see if it is helpful!

[llg, PhD, RN]

I also use the "depends on" approach a lot and agree with NewJersey's answer.

However, I don't like to think of corelational designs in that way because it suggests that one variable "causes" the other and that is not what the correlation statistics show. It suggests a "direction" to the relationship that may not actually exist.

But to answer a test question, etc., that is what I would do. Then I would probably debate the quality of the question with the instructor. But ... that's just me being nit-picky. :-)

[Wulfie]

Thanks to both of you for your replies! That is an excellent approach to figure these types of questions and I will use that in future instances.

Pertaining to the quality of question statement, I laughed pretty hard. I am a 47 yr old "non-traditional" student. In my first three semesters, I was ignorant enough to challenge a few of my instructors on that very basis. All it achieved was for my future instructors to "look out" for my questions. That is, they knew I was going to a wise @ss and try to nit pick them on things like semantics and real world application as opposed to textbook standards. I learned to listen, learn, and progress. But when the tape does come off my mouth in about a year, I will have a lot to say.

Thanks again!

[Scooter321]

What excellent replies! I love this forum for how much I learn about questions I didn't know I had.

Wulfie, I had to laugh when I read your post--I could have written it myself. I need to try taping my mouth too--my tongue is sore from two years of the biting down on it. :argue: I hate, hate, hate badly worded or ambiguous questions. Talk about an excercise in self-control!

[Hoping2BeStudent2010]

Independent variable would be the amount of time spent in the lab each week, because that is what you would vary for each of the participants (one person might spend 3 hours, one person might spend 6 hours, etc.). I am not sure what the dependent variable would be though. It wouldn't be grade received, because that is the result of the study (ex: person who spends 3 hours in lab gets a C, person who spends 6 hours gets a B). The dependent variable is really unstated. Unless the dependent variable would be "the lab" as opposed to "home" or "the library". That's a tough one!! Because if you think about it, if this were an actual study, there might be quite a few dependent variables like textbook used, labs performed - those things would need to be the same for all participants (dependent) in order for the study to be accurate. Does that make sense?