Experimental and Correlational Research Designs

Comparing and Contrasting Experimental and Correlational Research Designs

The two research methods are both quantitative research methods. Experimental research designs are mainly used to investigate causal relationships and studying relationships between one variable and another. Correlational research designs mainly try to establish if there is a relationship between two variables. Correlational research is nonexperimental because the researcher will be measuring two variables and assessing their statistical relationship. While experimental research will make use of independent and dependent variables, correlational research will not use any of these variables. In experimental research, the researcher can manipulate one of the variables, but for correlational research, no variable is manipulated but both variables are measured. The two research designs make use of hypothesis and the difference will come out based on whether the researcher assigned the participants to particular groupings or they just asked the participants the intended questions. In essence, correlational research does not perform any random assignment.

The selected article uses experimental research design and titled Motivated Recall in the Service of the Economic System: The Case of Anthropogenic Climate Change. The researchers indicate that people are more likely to recall climate change effects when there is an economic attachment associated with the information. The researchers conducted three different studies and in all the studies the experimental group demonstrated that they would be motivated by the economic system for them to recall evidence of climate change (Hennes, Ruisch, Feygina, Monteiro, & Jost, 2016). The researchers observed that people are not merely ignorant of this information, but rather they are motivated to justify their landscape of information in order to maintain their social status quo. Using the experimental research method, the researchers were able to randomly assign participants to different groups and share different information with the selected groups. This allowed the researchers to determine if there were any differences in the participant's responses.