Observational | Correlational | Experimental | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Basic Description |
Researcher records ongoing behavior in a natural or laboratory setting |
Research measures two or more factors and tries to discover if these factors are related |
Researcher changes the setting of one factor in a situation to see how it changes the participants behaviors | |
Types of Conclusions |
Description Observational Research does an excellent job of allowing researchers to describe actual behavior and determine how often that behavior happens. However it does not do a good job of allowing us to predict when the behavior will happen or why it happens. |
Prediction Correlational research allows researchers to predict when a behavior will occur. By knowing how changes in one factor (such as height) are related to another factor (such as weight) a person can measure one variable and be able to predict the value of the other variable. |
Causation Causation allows us to say that one factor (such as time spent studying a list of words) changes the value of another factor (such as memory for those words). An experiment is the only way to be able to draw this type of conclusion. |