Identifying IVs and DVs & Learning to Construct Good Research Questions

Identifying IVs and DVs & Learning to Construct Good Research Questions

For this assignment you will use the Good and Bad Research Questions from your textbook (pg 102) to learn how to identify IVs and DVs and construct good research questions

1. Identifying Independent and Dependent Variables

Determine the Independent Variable (IV) and Dependent Variable (DV) for each Good Research Question on page 102 of your text. Here is a jpeg of the page Pg 102 – Bad and Good Research Questions.JPG

Here is an example of how I would tackle this assignment. My attempt includes a start at operationalizing the variables (i.e., noting what the data would look like).

(1) Change in incidences of child abuse over the last 10 years in Wisconsin

IV – Year

measured as each year over the past 10 years

(2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001)

DV – change in child abuse

measured as # of incidences of child abuse reported for each year

2. Rewrite each BAD RESEARCH QUESTION to fix the problem identified and identify the IV and DV in your rewritten questions