Variables are important to understand because they are the basic units of the information studied and interpreted in research studies. Researchers carefully analyze and interpret the value(s) of each variable to make sense of how things relate to each other in a descriptive study or what has happened in an experiment.

What is a variable and why is it important?

Variables can represent numeric values, characters, character strings, or memory addresses. Variables play an important role in computer programming because they enable programmers to write flexible programs. Rather than entering data directly into a program, a programmer can use variables to represent the data.

Why is it important to consider all variables?

All other variables in each group are kept the same. This will allow the researcher to see if the tested variable is responsible for a result in the research. For example--a researcher may wish to test the hypothesis that exercise before an exam will result in higher test scores.