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What is causal

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What is causal-comparative research?
Also known as “ex post facto” research. (Latin for “after the fact”).
In this type of research investigators attempt to determine the cause or consequences of differences that already exist between or among groups of individuals.Causal-comparative research is an attempt to identify a causative relationship between an independent variable and a dependent variable. The relationship between the independent variable and dependent variable is usually a suggested relationship (not proven) because you (the researcher) do not have complete control over the independent variable.
EXAMPLE
You are a first year agricultural education teacher at the local high school. At the state CDE contest you run into a …show more content…

This experience or situation becomes interesting to a researcher as the researcher realizes that knowledge on the event might impact his/her future behaviors. For instance, a teacher might be motivated to conduct a causal-comparative study when he notes that one of his sections of
American History seem to consistently earn higher test scores than another class. Could the mini- lesson during which he taught the one section test-taking strategies have influenced the students’ test scores?
A special education consultant has noticed that, of the past five consultation cases that she has participated in with teachers, three of the five teachers have continued to integrate the teaching strategies the consultant shared during the cases into classroom lessons for three consecutive academic years. The consultant wonders whether the amount of time the teacher continue to uses the teaching strategy shared during the consultation process is influenced by the amount of the time the original consultation case spanned.

Step Two: Identify Variables

Reviewing published literature on a specific topic of interest is especially important when conducting causal-comparative research as such a review can assist a researcher in determining which extraneous variables may exist in the

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