Question

You want to examine the effects of poverty on the academic achievement of sixth-grade students. Would you use the experimental method or the correlational method to study this? Support your reasoning.

Answer 1

Experiential method of research can be defined as the method of research that studies that causation and effect of two variables. In this method of research that researcher has some control over the study as he can monitor and manipulate the variables to see how change in one variable affects the second.

Correlational method of research can be defined as the method of research that aims to study the relation between two variables. This method doesn't give the researcher much control over the study as the researcher only studies the effects of naturally occurring variable on the dependent variable.

In the above scenario, one wants to examine the effects of poverty(independent variable) on the academic achievement (dependent variable) of sixth grade students. Thus we want to study the effect of one variable over the second,that is a cause and effect method of study is required. Therefore experimental method of research must be used as it will allow us to study the data and compare it for two groups (children from poor economic backgrounds and children from good economic backgrounds) through randomized trial. This will allow us to reach just conclusion about the fact that does poverty affect the academic achievement of sixth grade children and if yes then to what extent.