A researcher studies length of time in college, first through fourth year, and its relation to academic motivation. To get the most detail out of her measures, she assesses each student in both the fall and spring semesters of each of their four years in school. She finds that students have increasingly higher motivation from their first semester to their seventh semester (the start of their fourth year), with a trailing off in the last semester. What is the independent variable in this study?

A researcher studies length of time in college, first through fourth year, and its relation to academic motivation. To get the most detail out of her measures, she assesses each student in both the fall and spring semesters of each of their four years in school. She finds that students have increasingly higher motivation from their first semester to their seventh semester (the start of their fourth year), with a trailing off in the last semester. The independent variable are:

Semester in school
Year in school

Step-by-step explanation:

The dependent variable in the given scenario is academic motivation as she is researching on academic motivation so this factor is influencing the results.
The semester and year in school are independent variables as these two factors are not influencing the results or research.