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Explain why the curriculum director cannot definitively conclude that the curriculum caused the observed shift in attitudes. What structural element is missing from this study, and how does its absence compromise the causal claim?
Case context: A school district decides to evaluate a new anti-drug curriculum using a one-group pretest-posttest design. They measure elementary school students' baseline attitudes toward illegal drugs, run the curriculum for a month, and then measure the students' attitudes again. Upon finding a positive shift in attitudes, the curriculum director concludes, 'Our new education curriculum is the direct cause of this positive improvement in student attitudes.'
Question: Explain why the curriculum director cannot definitively conclude that the curriculum caused the observed shift in attitudes. What structural element is missing from this study, and how does its absence compromise the causal claim?
Sample answer: The curriculum director cannot make a definitive causal claim because the study lacks a control group. Without a control group, there is no comparison baseline to rule out external factors or natural shifts in attitudes that might have occurred during the same timeframe. Consequently, the researchers cannot determine if the attitude change was caused by the anti-drug program itself or by unrelated external influences.
Key points:
- The evaluation lacks a control group.
- A control group is needed to establish a comparison baseline.
- Without a control group, researchers cannot rule out external factors or alternative explanations for attitude changes.
- The lack of control makes it difficult to definitively attribute the attitude shift solely to the educational curriculum.
Rubric: The explanation must show an understanding of the role of a control group. It should explain that the lack of a control group means external variables cannot be ruled out as alternative explanations for the change, thereby undermining the causal claim that the curriculum alone caused the attitude shift.
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Research Methods in Psychology - 4th American Edition @ KPU
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