Recently, the Mozart effect was studied by Jones and Estell by dividing high school participants into two groups. The first group listened to Mozart’s music and the second group did not. Both groups completed a series of spatial problems tasks. Results showed that the group of participants who listened to Mozart’s music had higher scores on the spatial problems tasks. In this example, what is the dependent variable?

The scores

Explanation:

In this example, the effect that is being studied is the effect of Mozart's music on the participants. Mozart's music is the independent variable in this example. This is because this is the variable that we have control over and we can manipulate in the experiment. On the other hand, the values that will be different based on this would be the results of the participants. This is because the results depend on whether they listened to Mozart's music or not. Therefore, the results of the spatial problems tasks are the dependent variable.