LESSON 2:KINDS OF

VARIABLES
PRE-TEST QUESTIONS:
ANSWER THE QUESTIONS BELOW.
FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS PROPERLY.
 
IDENTIFICATION. Identify what is being asked in
each number.
• 1. This 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
• 2. This kinds of variable is controlled and manipulated by the
experimenter and applied on another thing, condition or process.
- 3. This variable depend on the independent variables and
- they are the outcomes or results of the influence of the
independent variable.
Variables in research
• “characteristics that has two or more mutually exclusive
values or properties” (Sevilla and Other, 1988).
• Gender, for instance, has two properties which are
maleness and femaleness.
• The ages of different persons have different values; so
with their size, height, weight and income.
• The phenomenon of variety is what makes life interesting;
it is one of the motivating factors of the research
undertaking.
Variables in Research
• The root word of the word variable is “vary” or simply “can
change”.
• These variables are among the fundamental concepts of research,
alongside with measurement, validity, reliability, cause and effect;
and theory.
• Bernard (1994) defines a variable as something that can
take more than one value, and values can be words or
numbers.
• 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).
Major kinds of variable
1. Independent Variables
-Those that probably cause, influence
-Which is controlled and manipulated by the experimenter and
applied on another thing, condition or process.
- - the one responsible for the conditions that act on something else
to bring about changes.
EXAMPLE:
A study is on the relationship of study habits and academic
performance of VMC senior high school students. STUDY HABITS
is the independent variable because it influenced the outcome or the
performance of the students.
Major kinds of variable
2. Dependent variables
- Those that depend on the independent variables
- They are the outcomes or results of the influence of the
independent variable.
- -also called the outcome variable.
EXAMPLE: A study is on the relationship of study habits
and academic performance of the VMC 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 academic habit the
academic performance also change.
OTHER NAMES FOR INDEPENDENT AND
DEPENDENT VARIABLES
DEPENDENT VARIABLE INDEPENDENT VARIABLE

• Explained • Explanatory
• Response • Stimulus
• Outcome • Covariate
Control variable
• It is a variable that is NOT allowed to be changed
throughout the experiment.

• They are ideally expected to remain the same, they are

also called constant variable.
• So that the true influence of the independent variable on
the dependent variable can be determined.
• EXAMPLE: voltage from a power supply. If you are
studying, “How electricity affects experimental subjects”,
you should keep the voltage constant, otherwise the
energy supplied will change as the voltage will be
changed.
Other kinds of variables
Interval Variable
• Have a numerical value
• Hold no true zero and can represent values below zero
• Example: you can measure temperature below 0 degree Celsius such
as -10 degrees.
• Have order and equal intervals
• They allow not only to rank order the items that are
measured but also to quantify and compare the magnitudes
of differences between them.
• EXAMPLE: You have a variable such as monthly income that
is measured in Peso and we have three people who make
• 10,000
• 15,000
• 20,000
RATIO VARIABLE
• Similar to interval variable with one difference: the ratio
makes sense.
• In other word, never fall below zero.
• EXAMPLE: Temperature is not a ratio variable –
measured in degrees either Celsius or Fahrenheit. 0
under these temperature scales does not mean no
temperature at all.
• Stress level - Lets say that the respondents were being
surveyed about their stress levels on a scale of 0-10. A
respondent with a stress level of 10 should have twice the
stress experienced as a respondent who selected a stress
level of 5
Nominal variable
• Can be measured only in terms of whether the individual
items belong to certain distinct categories (represent
categories that cannot be ordered in any particular way. )
• Cannot quantify or even rank/ order the categories
• Nominal data has no order
• . It has two or more categories but does not imply ordering of
cases. Common examples of this variable include eye color,
business type, religion, gender, political affiliation, basketball
fan affiliation, etc.
• EXAMPLE:
• Gender : 1. Male 2. Female
• Marital Status: 1. Unmarried 2. Married 3. Divorce 4. Widower
Ordinal Variable
• Ordinal variable is a nominal variable, but tis different states are
ordered in a meaningful sequence.
• It represent categories that can be ordered from greatest to
smallest. This variable has two or more categories which can be
ranked.
• Ordinal data has order but the intervals between scale points may
be uneven.
• Example: Typical example is the socio-economic status of families.
We know “ upper middle” is higher than “middle” but we cannot say
“ how much higher”.
Example: if you asked people if they liked 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.
• QUIZ: https://forms.gle/BgYFG9nNTEp3ZyeE8
• QUIZ: https://forms.gle/BgYFG9nNTEp3ZyeE8

• Asynchronous activity: Identify the variable on the

following research paper :
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1710/1710.08836.pdf

• https://forms.gle/MU8D1Xd6krCQ5YNZ8