ERIC Number: EJ1429679
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2024-Sep
Pages: N/A
Abstractor: As Provided
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ISSN: ISSN-1040-726X
EISSN: EISSN-1573-336X
Available Date: N/A
Desire to Find Causal Relations: Response to Robinson and Wainer's (2023) Reflection on the Field - "It's Just an Observation"
Cody Ding
Educational Psychology Review, v36 Article 68 2024
In the article "It's Just an Observation," Robinson and Wainer (Educational Psychology Review 35, Robinson, D., & Wainer, H. (2023). It's just an observation. Educational Psychology Review, 35(83), Published online: 14 August, 2023) lamented that educational psychology is moving toward the dark side of the quality continuum, with fewer intervention studies and randomized controlled trials and a tendency to make causal inferences based on more armchair research using observational data. This paper discussed the challenges of making causal inferences, even with intervention studies and randomized controlled trials. We argued the usefulness of causal assumptions and modeling based on observational data regarding causal discovery while acknowledging their limitations. More importantly, the research rigor can be achieved in experimental or intervention studies as well as in studies using observational data. Showing favoritism could also taint our field by limiting our perspectives, stifling creativity, and diminishing scholarly variety. We should not allow the undue overinterpretation of correlational evidence to undermine the entire field of observational studies.
Descriptors: Journal Articles, Educational Psychology, Quality Assurance, Barriers, Causal Models, Comparative Analysis, Inferences, Observation, Intervention, Experiments
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
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