Question

what would be an example of an extraneous variable that could affect the participants of a study if researchers are not careful?

Answer 1

A extranous variable is anything that varies in the context of a study other than the independent and dependent variables. In an experimant on the effect of expressive writing on health, for example, extrameous variables would include participant variables such as their writing ability, their diet, and their shoe size. They would also include situational or task variables such as the time of day when participants write, whether they write by hand or on a computer, and the weather. Extraneous variables pose a problem because many of them are likely to have some effect on the dependnt variable. For example, participants’ health will be affected by many things other than whether or not they engage in expressive writing. This influencing factor can make it difficult to separate the effect of the independent variable from the effects of the extraneous variables, which is why it is important to control extraneous variables by holding them constant. Hence if study researcher not careful he has to above listed problem .so it should be very necessary to keep exatrameous variable is to keep constant.