ADMS 3900 Lecture Notes - Random Assignment
2 May 2013
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Claims an author makes can be classified as casual claims. Such claims argue that certain events or factors (causes) are responsible for bringing about other events or situations (effects). Such cause and effect relationships are the basis for decision making and reasoning. Examine carefully the causal claims of authors and analyse whether or not they are describing a genuine cause-effect relationship. Think of plausible rival causal explanations that can account for the effects f the same event. This occurs whenever an author says that an outcome is caused by a specific difference between groups. If there are any other such differences, we have a plausible rival cause. In addition, it is possible that a combination of multiple factors is the true cause. Correlation between characteristics occurs when a correlation between two factors is used to formulate a causal claim. It is possible that the link the author used functions in reverse to the way the author proposed it.
