I See Dependent and Independent Variables

I see dependent and independent variables all day long. Years of study both at the undergraduate and graduate level combined with many more years teaching experimental psychology and research methods have worked their effect on me.

The other day, I was driving to Texarkana and saw cattle egrets along the way. In one field with cattle, there were many more egrets than in other fields. That observation started me wondering why that one field had so many more egrets than the others.

Were I to follow up on my observation, then the number of cattle egrets in each field would become a dependent variable in my research.

A few days later, I was walking around campus and I noticed that some parked cars had one current campus parking permit affixed to their rear windows. However, other cars had two or more parking stickers affixed. Now, an independent variable came to mind: the number of parking stickers on each window. In other words, I could now use those two groups to divide drivers into two naturally-occurring groups.

Very quickly, hypotheses began to form in my mind. Were the drivers with more stickers students who were illustrating their tenure on campus? Or, were they simply unable to easily remove the old stickers?

After being exposed to research methods classes and after designing and conducting research projects, the world takes on a new look. Dependent and independent variables pop out everywhere.

Confused about the difference between dependent and independent variables? I like to find the dependent variables in a study first. The dependent variables are the measurements in research. Also, all of the participants will be measured.

On the other hand, independent variables divide the research into groups. The groups can occur naturally or be operationally defined by the researcher. The levels of the independent variable will not be the same for all participants. In the example above, some drivers have one parking sticker while others have two or more. See?