Which of the following is an example of correlational research?

Which of the following is an example of correlational research?

1.A researcher tracks smokers and nonsmokers to see how many of them get lung cancer and if there is a relationship between cigarettes smoked and lung cancer rates.

2. A researcher randomly divides her participants into two groups, giving one group a powerful new medicine while the other group gets a placebo.

3.A researcher interviews taxpayers to find out how strongly they would support a proposal for a “flat” tax.

4.A historian conducts an extensive study of the factors that led to the American defeat at Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Answer: 1.A researcher tracks smokers and nonsmokers to see how many of them get lung cancer and if there is a relationship between cigarettes smoked and lung cancer rates.

This option represents a correlational study, which seeks to discover the linear relationship or association between two or more variables without intervening in them. This situation includes the smoking habit (for smokers and non-smokers) and the lung cancer frequency. Correlational research also does not establish causation but can still show how two or more variables are related with each other. Option 2 introduces an experimental design that involves the use of random assignment of participants and the manipulation of the variables. Methods 3 and 4 involve observational or descriptive techniques but they do not unequivocally measure the connection between variables .