A researcher is interested in the effects of teaching styles on learning. She randomly assigns students to either a lecture-based class taught at 8:00 a.m. or a discussion-based class taught at 2:00 p.m. Her results reveal that students in the discussion-based class performed better than those in the lecture-based class. In this example the time that the class is taught could be considered an) ________variable, making it impossible to establish a causal connection between teaching method and classroom performance.
A) independent
B) dependent
C) extraneous
D) mediating

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The time the class is taught is an extraneous variable because it is not the variable of interest (teaching style) but could still affect the outcome (classroom performance), potentially confounding the results.

A Researcher Is Interested in the Effects of Teaching Styles