THE VARIABLES IN RESEARCH

VARIABLE defined

1. Variable is a symbol to which we assign numerical values (Kerlinger,

1977).
2. Variable refers to characteristics that has two or more mutually
exclusive values or properties (Sevilla, et.al., 1988).
3. Variable refers to any characteristic that can have different values or
traits that may vary across research participants. Variables are
measured, controlled, and manipulated by the researcher. Examples
include age, gender, height, and weight (Cristobal, 2017).
4. Variable is something that can take more than one value, and values
can be words or numbers (Bernard, 1994).
5. A variable specifically 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).

TYPES OF VARIABLES (Allen, Titsworth and Hunt in Mariano, 2019)

1. CONTINUOUS VARIABLES – A variable that can take infinite number

on the value that can occur within the population. For example, we
have age (anything from a day-old child to any age that a human can
reach), height, and temperature. Continuous variables can be further
categorized as:

a. INTERVAL VARIABLES
Interval variable is the difference between two data values that
gives credible meaning. Examples of interval data include
temperature (when measuring temperature in both Celsius and
Fahrenheit, 0 is arbitrary), time (numbers on a wall clock are on
an interval scale since they are equidistant and measurable), a
person’s net worth (how much money a person has when debt is
subtracted from assets), IQ Test (one cannot have zero IQ) etc.
b. RATIO VARIABLES – It has values that lie along an evenly
dispersed range of numbers when there is absolute zero. It
possesses the properties of interval variable and has a clear
 definition of zero, indication that there is none of that variable.
Examples of which are height, weight, and distance.

2. DISCRETE VARIABLES – This is also known as categorical or

classificatory variable. This is 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. Discrete variable may also be
categorized into:

a. NOMINAL VARIABLE – It represent categories that cannot be

ordered in any way. It is a variable with no quantitative value. It
has two or more categories but does not imply ordering of cases.
Common examples of this variable include eye color, business
type, religion, biological sex, political affiliation, basketball fan
affiliation, etc. A sub-type of nominal scale with only two categories
just like sex is known as dichotomous.

b. ORDINAL VARIABLE – It represents categories that can be

ordered from greatest to smallest. This variable has two or more
categories which can be ranked. Examples of ordinal variable
include education level, income brackets, etc. An illustration of
this is, if you asked people if they like listening to music while
studying and they could answer either “NOT VERY MUCH”,
“MUCH”, “VERY MUCH” then you have an ordinal variable. While
you can rank them, we cannot place a value to them. In this type,
distances between attributes do not have any meaning. For
example, you used educational attainment as a variable on survey,
you might code elementary school graduates = 1, high school
graduates = 2, college undergraduate = 3, and college graduate = 4.
In this measure, higher number means greater education. Even
though we can rank these from lowest to highest, the spacing
between the values may not be the same across the levels of the
variables. The distance between 3 and 4 is not the same with the
distance between 1 and 2.

KINDS OF VARIABLES
 1. INDEPENDENT VARIABLES – Those that probably cause, influence, or
affect outcomes. They are invariably called treatment, manipulated,
antecedent or predictor variables. This is the cause variable or the one
responsible for the conditions that act on something else to bring about
changes.
a. EXAMPLE: A study is on the relationship of study habits and academic
performance of UTNHS senior high school students. STUDY HABITS is
the independent variable because it influenced the outcome or the
performance of the students.

2. DEPENDENT VARIABLES – those that depend on the independent

variables; they are the outcomes or results of the influence of the independent
variable. That is why it is also called outcome variable.

EXAMPLE: A study is on the relationship of study habits and academic

performance of UTNHS senior high school students. ACADEMIC
PERFORMANCE is the dependent variable because it is depending on the study
habits of the students; if the students change their study habit the academic
performance also change.

3. INTERVENING OR MEDLING VARIABLES – Variables that “stand

between” the independent and dependent variables, and they show the effects
of the independent variable on the dependent variable.

EXAMPLE: Consider the given below. Even if farm production is good, if the
attitude towards payment is negative, loan repayment would be low, whereas, if
the attitude towards repayment is positive or favorable, loan repayment would
be high.

DV IV DV

4. CONTROL VARIABLES – A special types of independent variables that

are measured in the study because they potentially influence the dependent
variable. Researchers use statistical procedures (e.g. analysis of covariance) 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 variable can be determined.

5. CONFOUNDING VARIABLES – Variables 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 variables
and dependent variable, but they were not or could not be easily assessed.