Sponge's AP Psychology Vol. 1 - Correlational Research
- mbergman9
- Oct 9, 2015
- 1 min read
Correlational research sounds complicated but it's not. Look at the word, carefully. You'll see "co" and "relation" stand out. Correlational research is one of the research methods that allows us to examine the relationship between two variables. Simple!
Tip: Anytime you see correlational think about a relationship between two variables.
There are many different types of research methods used to study psychology. These include the observational method, surveys, and case study. We can learn a lot from these methods, but they just describe behavior.
Correlational research allows us to see if there is a relationship between two variables. This gives us more than just a description of behavior. Correlational research allows us to predict behavior, or relationships, between two variables.
Caution: If there is a correlation between variables it does not mean that we can say there is an A causes B relationship. Correlation does not mean that one variable causes another.
A correlation coefficient is used to tell us about the strength and the direction of the relationship between two variables. You don't have to know how to calculate the correlation coefficient, but you do need to know what it tells us. . .
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