ABSTRACT
The essential characteristics of the type of nonexperimental study are researchers observe and describe some current condition and researchers look to the past to try to identify the possible cause(s) of the condition. When researchers want to investigate cause-and-effect relationships, they usually prefer experimental over nonexperimental studies. If the group with lung cancer mainly resided in urban areas with heavy pollution, while those without lung cancer were all residents of rural areas, this weakens the argument that smoking was the key factor. Although the causal-comparative method has more potential pitfalls than the experimental method, it is often the best researchers can do when attempting to explore causality among humans. Notice that researchers do not give treatments in causal-comparative studies. Instead, they only describe observations. Hence, they are conducting nonexperimental studies.
