A researcher employs an IV X PV design to examine attitude towards cheating. She presents freshmen from a private university with a written account describing a male or female student who was accused of cheating on an exam. The same procedure is repeated for a sample of freshmen from a public university. After reading the account, the students were asked to assign an appropriate punishment. The PV in this design would be

a. the gender of the student accused of cheating
b. the university attended (private or public)
c. the class level of the participants (freshmen)
d. the punishment assigned