ABSTRACT
Researchers often collect data on several variables and want to know about the relationships among them. In one sense this is a next level of description, an explanatory level that describes how one variable relates to another. Thus, description in educational research need not be limited to description using variables taken one at a time. Description gains added depth when it includes relationships among variables. In describing a group of teachers, for example, we could describe their leadership ability by listing scores they obtain on a leadership scale. We might also describe how well their pupils do on their final exams. We now have two different variables with scores on both pertaining to each teacher. The obvious question is whether these two variables are related. That is, do the pupils of teachers with high leadership scores perform any differently on final exams than those with low leadership scores? Research problems of this type are the subject of correlational research.
