FIC0154 Basic Comm Research
Reference materials: Lecture notes 3, 4 and relevant book
chapters
Question 1
Define Independent and Dependent Variables.
Independent variables:
~ Variable that you have the power to control what you can choose
and manipulate.
~ Manipulated variable : varied by the
researcher.
~ Cause of the dependent variables : affects the dependent
variables to change.
~ Example: To investigate the effect of advertising on brand
loyalty. The types of the advertisement would be the independent variable. You
can directly manipulate the types of the advertisement in your research and get
the different results.
Dependent variables:
~ Variable that you measured in the research and show what
is affected during the research.
~ Variable that the researcher want to explain, observe and
measure.
~ Responding variableà changed by the
independent variable.
~ Depends on the independent variableà pressured by the
results of independent variable.
~ Example: To investigate the effect of advertising on brand
loyalty. The brand loyalty of would be the dependent variable. It will able to
change by the independent variable which is the types of advertisement.
Provide examples of topics and identify the dependent and
independent variables of the topics.
1) To investigate what types of TV program have more
advertising support.
Independent
variable: types of TV program
Dependent variable:
level of advertising support
2) To investigate how the languages affect the
communication skills.
Independent
variable: types of languages
Dependent variable:
levels of communication skills
3) To investigate the
bias level of newspaper towards the government.
Independent variable: types of
newspaper
Dependent variable: bias level
of newspaper
4) To investigate would Facebook addiction affect the
students’ concentration in class?
Independent variable: level of addiction to facebook
Dependent variable:
level of students’ concentration in class
Question 2
An
operational definition specifies the procedures to be followed to experience or
measure a concept/variable. There is no single foolproof method to
operationally defining a variable. The researcher must decide which method is
the best suited for the research problem at hand.
Provide
your own operational definition for each of following variables. In other
words, if your research involves the following variables, how would you
SPECIFIALLY define / observe / measure them?
E.g.
i)
Experienced female drivers
Answer: Operational
definition of the variable ‘experienced female drivers’ is defined
as ‘females between age 25-55 who hold a valid Malaysian driving license for 5
years and above’.
ii) Attitude towards illegal
movie downloading from the internet
Answer:
Operational definition of the variable ‘attitude towards illegal
movie downloading from the internet’ is measured by ‘how many
times a person downloads movies from internet sites without payment in a month.
0 times/month = totally against illegal downloading; 1-2 times month = somewhat
supportive of illegal downloading; 3-5 times/month = very supportive of illegal
downloading; more than 5 times a month = fanatic supporter of illegal
downloading.
Prime-time television
programs
The operational definition of the variable ‘prime-time
television programs’ is defined as the types of TV programs show during the prime
time which is 8-10 p.m. on all Malaysia
channels / between 7-10 p.m. in NTV7.
Students’ attitude in
lectures
The operational definition of the variable ‘students’
attitude in lectures’ is measured by the body language of the student (eye
contact, sitting exposure or writing note during the lectures) / number of
pages for the notes.
Addicted smart phone
users
The operational definition of the variable ‘addicted smart
phone users’ is defined as teenagers with the age between 15-20 years old that
using the smart phone more than 8 hours per day / number of apps in the phone. For
example: 1- 49 apps in the smart phone = not addicted to the smart phone; more
than 50 apps in the smart phone = addicted to the smart phone.
POSTED BY: YUE PEK CHEE (0310197)
