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 …
Category: Multivariate Studies
Breastfeeding and IQ
Lots of news outlets picked up a study in JAMA Pediatrics whose results demonstrated a correlation between length of breastfeeding and IQ in children. Here's the way the story was covered by NBCNews. NBC used the headline, "Kids who were breastfed have higher IQ's, study shows." a) The headline used by NBC contains two variables. …
Can early math skills help you make money?
The Atlantic provides a clearly written summary of a recent longitudinal study. The headline reads: Study: Math Skills at Age 7 Predict How Much Money You'll Make According to the summary, the researchers measured kids' IQ, math skills, reading skills, and SES (Socio-economic status) at age 7, and then measured their income at age 42. …
Measuring charter schools
Are charter schools effective? Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Joel Naroff wrote about the data we might use to decide whether charter schools are doing well. He describes the pitfalls of using achievement test scores to measure school effectivness. His article uses the language of multiple regression and internal validity to describe how difficult this process is. …
Are perfectionists doing better?
Perhaps you know a perfectionist in your life--a person who has very high standards and tends to be self-critical about any errors they make. Do perfectionists really do better work? Are they happier than others? According to most research, perfectionism is not particularly good for people. This short summary features work by psychologist Gordon Flett …
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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Chocolate consumption and BMI
More good diet news from the New York Times, along with a chance to apply lessons from Chapter 8 in the text. A recent study showed that people who eat chocolate more frequently tend to weigh 5 to 7 pounds less than people who don't. The people who ate chocolate the most frequently, despite eating …
Three different takes on a single journal article
In the journal-to-journalism cycle, the details of a study can get distorted on their way to the web. Here are three different takes on a recent article published by Canadian researchers. The study had apparently investigated links between spanking and child outcomes. Notice that the headlines in each study make different claims and focus on …
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Negative parenting and aggressive behaviors
This Fox News article describes the results of an empirical journal article (published in Child Development), presenting the results for a popular audience. Here is an excerpt from the journalist's description: The researchers assessed the infants' temperaments and the mothers' parenting styles in the first six months of life (by observing the pair during feeding …
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Prenatal folic acid and child speech development
A journalist's headline has reported, "Folic acid tied to better toddler talk". a. What kind of claim is this? Frequency, association, or cause? Here is a summary of the main finding: Women who took folic acid supplements in the first two months of pregnancy were less likely to have kids with severe language delays in …
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