This article uses the interventionist theory of causation, a counterfactual theory taken from philosophy of science, to strengthen causal analysis in process tracing research. Causal claims from process tracing are re-expressed in terms of so-called hypothetical interventions, and concrete evidential tests are proposed which are shown to…

Background: Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is a powerful and broadly utilized statistical framework. Researchers employ these models to dissect relationships into direct, indirect, and total effects (Bollen, 1989). These models unpack the "black box" issues within cause-and-effect studies by examining the underlying theoretical…

Context: A perennial problem in applied statistics is the inability to justify strong claims about cause-and-effect relationships without full knowledge of the mechanism determining selection into treatment. Few research designs other than the well-implemented random assignment study meet this requirement. Researchers have proposed partial…

Quasi-experimental methods are a cornerstone of applied social science, providing critical answers to causal questions that inform policy and practice. Although open science principles have influenced experimental research norms across the social sciences, these practices are rarely implemented in quasi-experimental research. In this paper, we…

In mixed methods approaches, statistical models are used to identify "nested" cases for intensive, small-n investigation for a range of purposes, including notably the examination of causal mechanisms. This article shows that under a commonsense interpretation of causal effects, large-n models allow no reliable conclusions about effect…

A vast body of work highlights executive functions (EFs) as robust correlates of mathematics achievement over the primary and preschool years. Yet, despite such correlational evidence, there is limited evidence that EF interventions yield improvements in early years mathematics. As intervention studies are a powerful tool to move beyond…

Students often believe that statistical significance is the only determinant of whether a quantitative result is "important." In this paper, I review traditional null hypothesis statistical testing to identify what questions inferential statistics can and cannot answer, including statistical significance, effect size and direction,…

What is the best way of discovering the underlying structure of a causal system composed of multiple variables? One prominent idea is that learners should manipulate each candidate variable in isolation to avoid confounds (sometimes known as the control of variables [CV] strategy). We demonstrate that CV is not always the most efficient method for…

Statistical mediation allows researchers to investigate potential causal effects of experimental manipulations through intervening variables. It is a powerful tool for assessing the presence and strength of postulated causal mechanisms. Although mediation is used in certain areas of psychology, it is rarely applied in cognitive psychology and…

Granger models are popular when it comes to testing hypotheses that relate series of measures causally to each other. In this article, we propose a taxonomy of Granger causality models. The taxonomy results from crossing the four variables Order of Lag, Type of (Contemporaneous) Effect, Direction of Effect, and Segment of Dependent Series…

The crisis caused by the COVID-19 virus has far-reaching effects in the field of education, as schools were closed in March 2020 in many countries around the world. In this article, we present and discuss the School Barometer, a fast survey (in terms of reaction time, time to answer and dissemination time) that was conducted in Germany, Austria…

Single case studies can provide vital contributions to theory-testing in social science studies. Particularly, by applying the process-tracing method, case studies can test theoretical frameworks through a rigorous research design that ensures substantial empirical leverage. While most scholarly contributions on process-tracing focus on either…

The validation model of causal bridging inferences proposed by Singer and colleagues (e.g., Singer in "Can J Exp Psychol," 47(2):340-359, 1993) claims that before a causal bridging inference is accepted, it must be validated by existing knowledge. For example, to understand "Dorothy took the aspirins. Her pain went away," one…

Humans have a unique ability to generate novel norms. Faced with the knowledge that there are hungry children in Somalia, we easily and naturally infer that we ought to donate to famine relief charities. Although a contentious and lively issue in metaethics, such inference from "is" to "ought" has not been systematically…

This observational, cross-sectional study examined students' retrospective recall of emotional distress when studying sensitive topics in psychology, and whether hardiness had a mediated pathway to emotional distress through a mental health condition (MHC). Psychology undergraduates (155 women, 34 men) from South Australian universities completed…