When studying the relationship between factors related to academic success among nursing students, Beauvis, Stewart, DeNisco & Beauvais (2013) found that there is an association between psychological empowerment, resilience, spiritual well-being, and academic success. What type of variables are psychological empowerment, resilience, spiritual well-being, and academic success?

There are different clasifications of variables, that depend on different characteristics. In the research design, the variables: psychological empowerment, resilience and spiritual well-being are independent variables, since the aim is to explore how these affect academic success. And academic success is the dependent variable.

Using another clasification, the variables psychological empowerment, resilience and spiritual well-being are qualitative variables, since neither of them can be counted, there can not be a number value that measures each one. On the other hand, if academic success will be measured with a grade, it is a quantitative variable.