I am conducting an experiment for my dissertation. I want to put the mediator after the independent variable, in the survey flow. However, my supervisor told me that it is wrong to do so. The strange thing is that I've seen tons of articles (from reputable journals, so I don't doubt of their quality) that would measure the independent variable first. So I'm a bit confused...can you do it or not?
Thank you in advance for your help :)
It is not understood, if you refer to time, it depends on your type of study, if it is transversal you have to survey the study variables at the same time, and do it several times if it is longitudinal.
Dear Federico
you don't actually care about where you put these questions in the paper that is submitted to universities.
What you can do is to follow the instructions of your supervisor to complete according to what your school asks for and graduate.
In reality, depending on how you are distributing your questions (e.g. online, hard-copy, etc.) you will choose which item to tackle first. sometimes it can be even based on small groups within the sample.
The order of obtaining your data does not really matter as long as it does not diminish what is supposed to obtain.
There has been examples where we even asked demographic questions at the very end and other variables were mashed up to each question (random topic questions). So just do what helps you graduate :)
If you had any questions regarding writing your dissertation, feel free to contact me on my profile.
Dear researcher, since you have a supervisor, please follow his guidance for the moment. Later with more research work you would experiment whether this articulation work or not. But that is the correct way of doing it. Because what a researcher has to find out the independent variable before the mediating variable.
Effects of the mediating variable is between the independent and dependent variables. But it is good if you seek advice from your supervisor.
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