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Complex Correlational Designs

18 November, 2015 - 17:39

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

  1. Explain some reasons that researchers use complex correlational designs.
  2. Create and interpret a correlation matrix.
  3. Describe how researchers can use correlational research to explore causal relationships among variables—including the limits of this approach.

As we have already seen, researchers conduct correlational studies rather than experiments when they are interested in noncausal relationships or when they are interested in causal relationships where the independent variable cannot be manipulated for practical or ethical reasons. In this section, we look at some approaches to complex correlational research that involve measuring several variables and assessing the relationships among them.