Independent and Dependent Variables in Research Psychology

Question

Define independent and dependent variables in Research Psychology?

Answer

Independent and dependent variables are the two main variables in an experiment or research project in psychology. An independent variable is one which the researcher manipulates to test the effects on the dependent variable. Thus, the dependent variable is the variable which the researcher measures after making changes to the independent variable.
For example, a researcher may wish to test the effect of type of information (random or organised) provided to participants on recall. In this example, the independent variable would be the type of information displayed and the dependent variable would be the amount of information recalled.

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