Table of Contents

Phenomena............................................................................................................................................. 2
Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 2
The Variables used in the study ........................................................................................................... 2
Indepdent and Dependent Variables ................................................................................................... 2
Categorical and Continuous Variables ............................................................................................... 4
Categorical Varaibles ........................................................................................................................... 4
Continous Variables.............................................................................................................................. 5
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 5
References .............................................................................................................................................. 7

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Phenomena

“An educational researcher is interested in the relationship between students’ participation in

H.1. Children who participate in an after-school program that emphasizes critical thinking
skills will score higher on measures of academic achievement and self-esteem than students
who participate in a program that emphasizes rote memorization.

What are the variables in this study? What would be good names for the variables? Identify the
independent variable(s) and dependent variable(s). Describe how each variable varies (i.e.,
whether the variable is categorical or continuous). Provide justification for why each variable
varies the way you describe”.

Introduction

The study under discussion is based on an educational institute which uses after school program
which emphasizes on crirtical thinking skills of student which leads in higher scores and results
in increased academic achievement and self-esteem among students. However, the students
who emphasize on rote memorization are lower in academic achievements and self-esteem.

The Variables used in the study

The study uses mainly four variables namely:

1. Critical Thinking Skills

Indepdent and Dependent Variables

Every research involves different types of varaivles depending on the effect and cause of the
study variables. Mainly, the research uses indedentent variable, mediating variable, moderating

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variable, control variable and dependent variable (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2016;
Zikmund, Carr, Griffi, & Babin, 2013)

. Moreover, in this study, the independent variables are:

1. Critical Thnking Skills

As mentioned above, these variables are having impact on students academic performance and
on their personality which is mentioned as self-esteem. Therefore, those variables who have
effect on other variables or predicts the other variables are known as independent variables.

On the other hand, there are variables that are affected by other varaibles which means they are
the consequences of antecedent variables. The variables that are the results or the outcomes of
the independent variables are known as depedent varaibles. The have cause and effect
relationship. In this study, the dependent variables are students :

1. Academic Performance
2. Self-Esteem

The study shows that critical thinking skills leads towards students higher academic
achievement and higher self-esteem. Whereas, rote memorization leads towards lower
academic achaievement and self-esteem. Below is the conceptual framework for the
relationships hypothesized.

Critical Thinking + Academic

- Self-Esteem
Rote Memorization

Figure 1: Conceptual Framework

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Categorical and Continuous Variables

The variables are classified into mainly two types which are widely used in the research. The
first type is known as Categorical variables.

Categorical Varaibles

The categorical variables refers to the variables which can be categorized into further sub-
types. Categorical varaibles are also known as discrete or qualitative variables. There are three
sub-types of categorical variables namely nominal, ordinal or dichotomous.

Nominal variables:

The variables which can be cetogorized into two or more than two categories but which do not
have intrinsic order are known as nominal variables. For instance, the classic example of
nominal variables is job type like in a study researcher ask respondents about their job level
i.e., manager, line-manager, first line staff and functional employees. Another example is real
estate agent can categorize their property types into different and distinct cateorize i.e., terrice
houses, condos, pent-hoouses, or banglows. Thus, the "type of property" and “type of Job” are
nominal variable which consisits four categories.

Dichotomous variables:

The second type of categorical variables is Dichotomous variables. It refers to the varaibles
that are similar to the nominal variables but they have only two categories or levels. For
instance, when we disicuss about gender, it most probably be categorized into two categoroize
either male or female. This is one of the example of dichotomous variables and also known as
nominal variables. Those varaibles which involve only two options are considered as
dichotomous.

Ordinal variables:

The third type of categorical variables is ordinal variables. The ordinal variables are those
which have two or more than two categories like nominal but here the categories are in order
form or in ranked form. One of the example is when you ask people about the governemnt
policies and they can anseer either "Not very much", "They are OK" or "Yes, a lot" then it is
known as an ordinal variable. Why? Because you have 3 categories, namely "Not very much",

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"They are OK" and "Yes, a lot" and you can rank them from the most positive (“Yes, a lot”),
to the middle response (“They are OK”), to the least positive (“Not very much”).

Continous Variables

The second type of variables is known as continuous variables which are known
as quantitative variables. Continuous variables can further be categorized into sub-categories
as interval or ratio variables.

Interval variables:

The first type of continous variables are interval varaibles. The interval variables refers to the
varaibles which can be measured along a contimuum and they have a numerical value. For
instance, temperaturere measured in degrees Celsius or Fahrenheit. Therefore, it can be stated
that the difference between 30C to 40C is the same as 40C to 50C.

Ratio variables:

The second type of continous variables is the ratio variables. The ratio variables are the interval
variables but they have an added condition which is 0 of the measurement which indicates that
there is none of that variable. So, temperature measured in degrees Celsius or Fahrenheit is not
a ratio variable because 0C does not mean there is no temperature. However, temperature
measured in Kelvin is a ratio variable as 0 Kelvin (often called absolute zero) indicates that
there is no temperature whatsoever.

Based on the definitions and explanations of categorical and contnous variables, the variables
used in this study are continous variables. As discussed above, the categorical varaibles are
those which which can be categories into nominal, dichotomous or ordinal varaibles. However,
the critical thinking skills variable cannot be categorize into any of the above mentioned
vategoriccal variables as the values are not discrete or in categories. It can be meaaured on a
continum and on a scale. Same is the case with other variables used in this study. Therefore, it
is concluded that all the variables in this study are continous variables.

Conclusion

The study analyzed a phenomena on educational institute which uses an after-school program
that emphasized on crtitical thinking skills to improve students performance and deveop
peronsality. This study identified the variables used in the above phenomen and explained the.

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The names of the variables were identified and proper explanation has been given. The
conceptual framework has been developed based on the varaibles identified in earlier section.
Furthermore, the variables types have been discussed and this study contended that all the
varaibles used are continous variables based on the definition of categorical and continous
varaibles.

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References

Saunders, M., Lewis, P., & Thornhill, A. (2016). Research Methods for Business Students. In
Research methods for business students (p. 649).
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415324.004

Zikmund, W. G., Carr, J. C., Griffi, M., & Babin, B. J. (2013). Business Research Methods.
South-Western, Cengage Learning (Vol. 8). https://doi.org/9781285401188