Читать книгу Lifespan Development - Tara L. Kuther - Страница 85

Are children with high self-esteem more likely to excel at school? Are older adults with more friends happier than those with few? Are college students who work part-time less likely to graduate? All of these questions can be studied with correlational research, which permits researchers to examine relations among measured characteristics, behaviors, and events. For example, in one study, scientists examined the relationship between physical fitness and academic performance in middle school students and found that children with higher aerobic capacity scored higher on achievement tests than did children with poorer aerobic capacity (Bass, Brown, Laurson, & Coleman, 2013). Note that this correlation does not tell us why aerobic capacity was associated with academic achievement. Correlational research cannot answer this question because it simply describes relationships that exist among variables; it does not enable us to reach conclusions about the causes of those relationships. It is likely that other variables influence both a child’s aerobic ability and achievement (e.g., health), but correlation does not enable us to determine the causes for behavior—for that we need an experiment.

Researchers experimentally manipulate which children play with violent video games to determine their effect on behavior.

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