Ashford University Relationships Between the Variables & Internal Validity Discussion

Correlational Research

Descriptive research methods are nonexperimental methods that are used to acquire information about a phenomenon or to describe the relationship between two or more phenomena. Nonexperimental methods are different from experimental methods in that they do not involve the manipulation of variables or the modification of the situation under investigation. Explain the purpose of correlational research and develop three research examples of when a correlational study would be required. Pertaining to the examples you provided, what type of information would the data/results provide and what would the proposed strength of the associations be? Discuss some potential third variables that could be responsible for the relationships between the variables and how those could be threats to internal validity. Post should be at least 3625 words.

Recommended Resources

Articles

Cox Jr., L. (2007). Regulatory false positives: True, false, or uncertain?. Risk Analysis: An International Journal, 27(5), 1083-1086. [Retrieved from EBSCOhost].

Odom, L. R., & Morrow Jr., J. R. (2006). What’s this r? A correlational approach to explaining validity, reliability and objectivity coefficients. Measurement in Physical Education & Exercise Science, 10(2), 137-145. [Retrieved from EBSCOhost].

Tate, R. L., Mcdonald, S., Perdices, M., Togher, L., Schultz, R., & Savage, S. (2008). Rating the methodological quality of single-subject designs and n-of-1 trials: Introducing the Single-Case Experimental Design (SCED) Scale. Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, 18(4), 385-401. [Retrieved from EBSCOhost].

Websites:

Experiment-resources.com (2017). Quasi-Experimental Design. Retrieved from https://explorable.com/quasi-experimental-design (Links to an external site.)

StatSoft, Inc. (2017). Electronic statistics textbook. Retrieved from http://www.statsoft.com/textbook/ (Links to an external site.)

Trochim, W. M. K. (2006). Research methods: Knowledge base. Retrieved from http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/