Correlation

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Correlation

Advantages

  • Can be used when it would be considered unethical or impractical to conduct an experiment.
  • If a correlation is not strong then you can rule out a causal relationship because if there is no correlation between two variables then there cannot be a causal relationship.
  • If the correlation is strong then further investigation is justified to investigate a possible causal link.

Disadvantages

  • Cannot show a cause-and-effect relationship.
  • People can mistake the correlation for a causal relationship.
  • May be intervening variables that can explain why co-variables are linked.
  • Method used may lack reliability or validity.

Evaluation

They are good for applied research where controlled experiments could not be carried out. For example a study on smoking and death.Provides mainly quantitative data - good for comparing but no insight into what is going on inside people.

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