Independent Variables and Dependent Variables: Which is FREQUENCY OF USE? Which is WORD RACE ENTRIES?

Mr. Kim says:   a)     I think that teacher's use of uptake could elicit more responses from students.   Very true. Repetition leads to MORE repetition. But will that lead to more “Word Race” entries?   SOME kinds of repetition appear to lead to the “death of meaning”. It is much easier to remember what you had for 추석 then to remember what you had for breakfast the day before yesterday. In English, we repeat the word “a” and “the” and “of” a lot when we speak. But this does not appear to make them either meaningful memorable.   Notice that Mr. Kim uses the word “could”. But we don’t really want the word “could” We want the word “DOES” or “IS”. We don’t want to talk about possibilities. We want to talk about realities. We don’t want to talk about potential. We want to talk about the data.   b)    Frequent use of some word of the students could result from the teacher's use of uptake.   Also very true. But DOES that lead to more “Word Race” entries? Not “could it”, but “does it”.   We are interested in a VERY SPECIFIC kind of uptake. We are interested in the kind of uptake we find on “Word Race” charts after the class, when we just ask the kids to write down anything they remember.   This isn’t really “use” of a word. In fact, it’s not part of the class at all. It’s something that the teacher does AFTER the class to gather data for her thesis work without interfering with her teaching. She asks the kids to write down what they remember, and they do. But is there a relationship between the number of times she uses a word IN class and the number of times the kids write down the word AFTER class? That’s the question.   c)      In my opinion, rote memory practice does not result in the more use of the words.   Good. But can you find DATA to back up this opinion?   Not in this article! In this article, “use” is an INDEPENDENT variable. It’s not a DEPENDENT variable. That is, “use” is the INPUT, not the OUTPUT.   Almost every study has some kind of “independent” variable. For example, in the “Pulgasari” study, our “independent” variables were things like “comedy” and “tragedy”, “book” and “video”.   Studies also have some kind of “dependent” variable. For example, in the “Pulgasari” study, our “dependent” variables were the length of the turn, the length of the exchange, and the use of 작하다.   Remember? We found that “tragedy” meant longer exchanges, but not longer sentences. And we found that there was NO use of 작하다 in the book exchanges, but there was in the video exchanges.   Now, perhaps you think this is not a useful result. I suppose, by itself, it isn’t. But if we combine it with a theory about how aesthetic development is linked to ethical development, it might be.   Our task in this study is a little different, Mr. Kim. We need to try to link USE inside the classroom with MEMORY outside the classroom. We have a number of independent variables, e.g. “use of the CD ROM”, “use by the teacher”, “Look and Listen”, etc. What is the dependent variable?   d)    Each meaning of the words has more influence on more use of it later.”    Very true. But that is only our INDEPENDENT variable. What about the DEPENDENT variable, the use of the word on the Word Race after class?