Purpose statement

[Janny]

Hey guys, 

I am a new grad student and today i went to talk to my adviser and i was crashed hard by what he said. We will talking about possible topics of my interest and he ask me questions like what is your independent and dependent variables, types of research. I couldnt answer because i have not touch any of those courses yet. So he was surprise that i have no background. Am i the only on thinking i was this bad ? or was he just pushing me hard ?

 

Also is there anyone that can help me with my purpose statement ? i have ideas but it just dont look right when i put them together . ( and figuring what is DV and IV)

 

Really appreciate it

[avflinsch]

This is the "for for complete beginners"  definition for dependent/independent variables -

Assume that your your study is titled along the lines of  "the effect of x on y"
x is the independent variable, y is the dependent variable

in other words, the independent variable is what is changing, and the dependent is what results from the changes in the independent variables.

 

 

 

[rising_star]

Get a basic book on research and research methods and use that to learn about variables, types, of research, etc. It's grad school so once you realize you don't know something like this, it's up to you to start reading so you can figure it out. You'll also want to pay attention to the methods section of various articles you're using to get a sense of the types of research being done on the topics you're interested in.