A psychologist is conducting an experiment to test the influence that coloured backgrounds of pages in textbooks have on the amount of information retained by students. She has a short text printed in three versions, each with a different colour of background. After students in three separate groups read their assigned text, she tests the students' retention. In this study, the retention of what the students read is the
A) dependent variable.
B) random variable.
C) independent variable.
D) control variable.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The retention of what the students read is the dependent variable because it depends on the manipulation of the independent variable (the coloured background of the page). The independent variable is the factor that the psychologist is manipulating (the colour of the background) and the control variable is a variable that is held constant in order to ensure that it does not influence the results of the study. The retention of what the students read is not a random variable, as it is specifically being measured as an outcome of the experiment.

A Psychologist Is Conducting an Experiment to Test the Influence