Learning to Give Reverse Causality Explanations for Correlations: Still Hard After All These Tries

After explicit instruction on how to give possible bidirectional (two-way) causality explanations for a correlation, 240 students from eight sections of social psychology and research methods courses wrote “reverse causality” explanations on various test questions, creating a total of 882 answers. A...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Teaching of psychology 2019-07, Vol.46 (3), p.223-229
Main Authors: Sibulkin, Amy E., Butler, J. S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Academic Ability
Academic achievement
Accuracy
Black Colleges
Causal Models
Causality
Correlation
Critical Thinking
Difficulty Level
Familiarity
Grade Point Average
Historically Black Colleges & Universities
Performance Based Assessment
Psychology
Research Methodology
Social Psychology
State Universities
Test Items
Undergraduate Students
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Summary:After explicit instruction on how to give possible bidirectional (two-way) causality explanations for a correlation, 240 students from eight sections of social psychology and research methods courses wrote “reverse causality” explanations on various test questions, creating a total of 882 answers. Averaging across multiple graded attempts over four semesters, only 45% of the explanations were correct. The highest average for a single question was 67% correct. A regression predicting correct answers showed that students with higher grade point averages (GPAs) were more likely to answer correctly. Controlling for GPA and topic of the correlation, later attempts were significantly more likely to be answered correctly than earlier attempts.
ISSN:0098-6283
1532-8023
DOI:10.1177/0098628319853936