CURRICULUM, INSTRUCTION, AND PEDAGOGY article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Educational Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1645518
Improving the teaching of "correlation does not equal causation" in Introductory Psychology
Provisionally accepted
- 1Willamette University College of Arts and Sciences, Salem, United States
- 2University of California Merced, Merced, United States
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"Correlation does not equal causation" is perhaps the most familiar phrase to any student or instructor in an Introductory Psychology class. While short and pithy, we argue that this phrase and its variants can lead to confusion among students, who may incorrectly interpret it to mean that "correlation CANNOT mean causation." Unfortunately, this misinterpretation trades one type of reasoning error (incorrectly drawing a causal conclusion from a correlational study) for a separate type of reasoning error (incorrectly concluding there cannot be a causal relationship reflected in a correlational study). Drawing on patterns of student responses on an exam question targeting this issue, we demonstrate that this latter reasoning error is observed in over 30% of Introductory Psychology students. We end by proposing a set of possible sources of this confusion and call on instructors of Introductory Psychology to develop and assess methods to better teach this scientific reasoning skill.
Keywords: pedagogy, introductory psychology, Correlation, Scientific Reasoning, curriculum – undergrad and postgrad, curriculum & instruction, Causal conclusions, Critical Thinking
Received: 11 Jun 2025; Accepted: 03 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Stevens, Witkow and Isbell. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Courtney Stevens, Willamette University College of Arts and Sciences, Salem, United States
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