Below are descriptions of two studies on childhood obesity from the medical journal, JAMA Pediatrics. Of the two studies, one is correlational and one is experimental. Which is which? Two studies in JAMA Pediatrics offer U.S. parents evidence to back their attempts at limiting sedentary screen time in their homes.The first study reports that adding …
Category: Chapter 03; Three Claims, Four Validities
Why is the US ideologically segregated?
People in the United States tend to live in ideological clusters--there are "red" states and "blue" states, or at least red counties and blue counties. Political ideologies are not simply randomly distributed around the country--instead, most people live close to people who share their political beliefs. Political clustering represents an association--there is an association between …
Studying what goes viral online
Have you ever seen the video, "Charlie bit me?" Did you send the link to any friends? How about another video or news story? Why do you think you forwarded--or did not forward--the links you've seen? According to this piece in FastCompany, some Internet stories are more likely to "go viral" than others. Social scientists …
Art Makes You Smart
Here's a great example of a field experiment. In a piece in the New York Times, a group of researchers write about a study they conducted, in which students were randomly assigned to visit museums. In the opening paragraphs, you'll see a comment about the ability of resesarch to support causal claims: For many education advocates, …
Commuting and political engagement
An NPR story carried the headline, "Study: Commuting Adversely Affects Political Engagement." The verb in the headline, "affects" makes this a causal claim. Is there evidence in the story that commuting causes changes in political engagement? In an interview, researcher Joshua Johnson stated the relationship in causal terms, too: We found that when people spent …
Do gut bacteria shape the way we think and feel?
NPR reports on some research linking the type of bacteria that live in our digestive systems with the emotions that we experience. They report several studies, some of which are correlational and others are experimental. In the following excerpts, a. Decide if the study is correlational or experimental. b. Identify the variables in each example. …
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Claims about giving, receiving, and regifting
The Wall Street Journal provides a handy way to practice categorizing claims and variables in this story on gift-giving. The journalist describes a number of psychological studies on how people feel when they give and receive gifts. Click on the story and enlarge the custom cartoon titled "The Science Behind Gifting." Read and classify each claim …
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Neural changes from early music lessons
Contemporary neurscience research keeps finding examples of brain plasticity and growth. Today's example comes from the area of music lessons. Do early music lessons change the brain? Here's how the New York Times covered this topic area. This news article reviews a range of recent research on brain changes in response to early music lessons. …
Critical thinkers eat a good breakfast.
My morning cereal box carried some helpful hints for back-to-school. The photo shows a section of the back of the box. Let's discuss the second point in the photo below. In my opinion, this cereal box is doing a pretty good job of reporting on science here. For one, the "facts'' they state are attributed …
Links between spanking and later mental health
A recent article in Yahoo! news network describes research on spanking and mental health. The journalist reports: Corporal punishment was associated with increased odds of anxiety and mood disorders, including major depression, panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, agoraphobia and social phobia. Several personality disorders and alcohol and drug abuse were also linked to physical punishment, …
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