Which of the following is a valid criticism of observational methods in psychological research?
A) Because they are not real experiments, observational methods are not considered real science.
B) Because they do not involve a lab setting, observational methods are not publishable in peer-reviewed journals, and thus do not provide generalizable science.
C) Because they involve very little manipulation on the researcher's part, and do not generally employ random assignment, observational methods rarely yield data supporting causal relationships.
D) Because the data is generally qualitative in nature, observational methods do not yield data that can be analyzed with inferential statistics and do not meet the rigor that psychological scientists require.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Observational methods are limited in establishing cause and effect relationships between variables as they do not involve manipulation or random assignment. Therefore, the data obtained from these methods may not support causal relationships in the way that experiments can. However, observational methods can still provide valuable descriptive data and insights into complex phenomena that cannot be studied using experimental designs.

Which of the Following Is a Valid Criticism of Observational