A psychologist records the usual number of hours each pupil practises a musical instrument each week and each pupil’s typical score in school music performances. The results show a positive correlation between the two measurements. The psychologist concludes that practising for more hours causes pupils to achieve higher performance scores.
Explain how the direction of cause and effect proposed by the psychologist could instead be reversed.
Explain how a third variable could account for the relationship between practice and performance scores.
139 exam-style questions on OCR GCSE Psychology 7.2 Doing Research, covering 7.2.1 Experiments, 7.2.2 Interviews, 7.2.3 Questionnaires (Surveys), 7.2.4 Observations, 7.2.5 Case Studies, and 7.2.6 Correlations. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.