A medical researcher wants to investigate whether pre-operative training using a virtual reality (VR) simulator improves the precision of junior surgeons performing a laparoscopic procedure.
The researcher recruited 16 junior surgeons from a teaching hospital. Using a matched-pairs design, surgeons were paired based on their baseline dexterity scores. One surgeon from each pair was assigned to Condition A (30 minutes of VR simulation warm-up before the procedure) and the other was assigned to Condition B (30 minutes of standard quiet rest before the procedure).
All surgeons then performed a standardised suturing task on a synthetic abdominal model in a simulated operating room. The researcher measured the total length of misplaced suture (in millimetres) during the 10-minute task. All participants were given standardised instructions and used the same model of laparoscopic instruments.
Identify the operationalised dependent variable in this study.
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