This exercise is designed to help you see what can and cannot be accomplished with survey/correlational types
of research. Read the “Study shows…” news story(ies) on GauchoSpace then answer the questions below.
What kind of claim (e.g., associational/correlational versus causal) is being made regarding the issues in the
news?
What were the researchers’ actual findings in the studies being reported (i.e., what specific link did they find
between the variables studied)?
How might the reporting about these findings either mislead or help readers understand the relationship between
variables in these studies? Is there a problem with concluding that one thing leads to another? Can you make a
case that the causality between these variables could reasonably go in the other direction? Or be explained by
third variables?
Exercise (due Wednesd