Manipulation Check

Experiments are conducted in communication research in order to determine if manipulating one variable will have an effect on another variable. The variable that is manipulated is called the independent variable. A dependent variable changes based on the manipulation of the independent variable. For example, if a researcher were interested in the effect of violent video games on aggression among young adults, he or she could manipulate the type of violent video game along with the amount of time the participant spent playing these games each week and then measure [Page 901]participant levels of aggression after playing violent video games. In this example, the violent video games would be the independent variable and aggression would be the dependent variable because video game exposure is being ...