Page 53 - DMGT209_QUANTITATIVE_TECHNIQUES_II

Quantitative Techniques-II

Notes 4. Extraneous variables answer the question “What uninteresting variables might mediate
the effect of the IV on the DV?”

3.3.4 Exhaustive

Finally, there are two traits of variables that should always be achieved. Each variable should be
exhaustive, it should include all possible answerable responses.

Example: If the variable is “religion” and the only options are “Christians”, Hindus”,
“Jewish”, and “Muslim”, there are quite a few religions that haven’t been included. The list does
not exhaust all possibilities. On the other hand, if you exhaust all the possibilities with some
variables – religion being one of them – you would simply have too many responses.

The way to deal with this is to explicitly list the most common attributes and then use a
general category like “Other” to account for all remaining ones. In addition to being exhaustive,
the attributes of a variable should be mutually exclusive; no respondent should be able to
have two attributes simultaneously. While this might seem obvious, it is often rather tricky in
practice.

Example: You might be tempted to represent the variable “Employment Status” with
the two attributes “employed” and “unemployed.” But these attributes are not necessarily
mutually exclusive – a person who is looking for a second job while employed would be able to
check both attributes! But don’t we often use questions on surveys that ask the respondent to
“check all that apply” and then list a series of categories? Yes, we do, but technically speaking,
each of the categories in a question like that is its own variable and is treated dichotomously as
either “checked” or “unchecked”, attributes that are mutually exclusive.

Task Give three examples of events in which the variables are mutually exclusive.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:
5. A …………..is any entity that can take on different values.
6. An ………….is a specific value on a variable.
7. ………variable are those that might affect the relationship between the independent and
dependent variables.

3.4 Propositions-Hypotheses Research Process

A hypothesis is a proposition – a tentative assumption which a researcher wants to test for its
logical or empirical consequences. Hypotheses are more useful when stated in precise and
clearly defined terms. It may be mentioned that though a hypothesis is useful it is not always
necessary, especially in case of exploratory researches. However, in a problem-oriented research,
it is necessary to formulate a hypothesis or hypotheses. In such researches, hypotheses are
generally concerned with the causes of a certain phenomenon or a relationship between two or
more variables under investigation.

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