A college teacher intends to find out as to what extent student involvement in learning of boys and girls from rural/urban areas is attributable to the socio-economic status of the family from which they hail. What will be designated as an independent variable in this research project?

Variable in research is anything that a researcher wants to measure in his/her research study. There are three types of variables,

1. Independent variable: The variable that is stable and unaffected by the other variables you are trying to measure. It refers to the condition of an experiment that is systematically manipulated by the investigator. It is the presumed cause.

2. Dependent variable: The variable that depends on other factors that are measured. These variables are expected to change as a result of experimental manipulation of the independent variable or variables. It is the presumed effect.

3. Extraneous variables: anything that varies in the context of a study other than the independent and dependent variables. It is also called the participant variable. For example, noise, writing ability, ill-health in communication.

• A college teacher intends to find out as to what extent student involvement in learning of boys and girls from rural/urban areas is attributable to the socio-economic status of the family from which they hail. 
• This project aims to find out socio-economic status as a factor in learning.
• So it is clear about the project that student involvement in learning depends on the socio-economic status of the family.
• The active involvement in learning changes dew respect of the family status of the student.
• The socio-economic status of the family does not change with the learning and involvement of students from the rural area.
• So, Student involvement in learning is a dependent variable while the socio-economic status of the family is independent.