Steve Tippins explains why your dissertation's problem statement, purpose, and research questions must align tightly, especially in experimental design. The response variable, what you actually measure, is the outcome that changes when you manipulate something else. He uses batting averages, test scores, and blood pressure as examples of what you're tracking.
In your dissertation, we're gonna go back now to alignment. Your problem, your purpose, your research questions all need to be in alignment, and if you're doing an experimental design, they need to be worded in such a way that an experiment needs to take place. The problem is we do not know the impact of a change in diet on baseball players' batting averages, for example. So what are the core building blocks of experimental design? Design. Some call the first thing a response variable. I've also heard it called a dependent variable. This is what you're measuring, the outcome. Going back to my previous example, the batting average. We could also look at test scores, blood pressure, breakdown rates for parts in a system, all kinds of things where we make an impact or a change in one area. What happens to the other thing that we're measuring, our response variable? Drop the word help in the comments below, and I'll send you the link to my free dissertation help community.
