It’s Just an Observation

Abstract

To date, there have been four responses (Dumas & Edelsbrunner, Educational Psychology Review, 35, 48, 2023; Grosz, Educational Psychology Review, 35, 57, 2023; Mayer, Educational Psychology Review, 35, 64, 2023; Zitzmann et al., Educational Psychology Review, 35, 65, 2023) to the Brady et al. (Educational Psychology Review, 35, 36–37, 2023) observational study showing that the field of educational psychology has experienced a continued (1) decline in the proportion of empirical articles that include intervention and experimental studies, an (2) increase in the proportion that include observational studies, and an (3) increase in the proportion of the latter that include recommendations for practice. Educational psychology is continuing its movement toward the dark side of the quality continuum. There are fewer intervention studies and more armchair research—“analyzing” large datasets from the comfort of offices. More alarming is the increase in the tendency for authors to infer causality from correlation and offer recommendations based on shaky ground. The statistical models that flood our journals are casual, NOT causal. They are connected only through a vowel movement that is stinking up our field.