Question

An investigator was interested in the effect of a prenatal care on the weight of newborns. She realized it would be unethical to take a group of pregnant women and assign half of them to a condition in which they would receive no prenatal care. If she chose instead to collect data on the level of prenatal care and the newborn weight of all the children born in the hospitals of a large city for one month, what scientific method would she be using?

a case study

a correlation

a survey

an experiment

Answer 1

An investigator was intrested in the effect of a prenatal care on the weigt of newborns. She realized it would be unethical to take a group of pregnant women and assign half of them to a condition in which they would receive no prenatal care. If she chose instead to collect data on the level of prenatal care and the newborn weight of all the children born in the hospitals of a large city for one month, which scientific method would she be using?

The correct answer is a correlation.

Justification - As the invesigator drops the initial plan and decides to go by the level of prenatal care which is received by a pregnant women in the hospital then, the investigator has used a correlaltional method of scientific study. As the level of prenatal care would increase or decrease accordinlgy, the weight of the newborn will be measured. The definition of a correlational method is same where, the intensity of one variable is decreased or increased and its effect is seen on the other variable, whether it increases or decreases. Here, the two variables are the amount of prenatal care and the weight of the newly born.