Causal Research

Causal research is research which is designed to determine the exact cause of some phenomenon. It goes to great lengths to eliminate all spurious factors and narrow the cause to either a single or multiple sources. If it is a multiple source, then some determination of the relative strengths of effect and the nature of the interrelationship between the casual factors are usually part of the overall research effort.

This type of research can be quite tricky in that there are many things which may appear to cause other things, but actually turn out not to be the cause at all. The Latin expression, "post hoc ergo propeter hoc" ("comes before, therefore cause of") refers to the problems associated with causal research. For example, two things may occur together because both are caused by another unseen a common factor.

The discipline of Philosophy is heavily involved in examining the issues surrounding causality. There is an excellent annotated bibliography on the subject, and an excellent walk through of the definitions, and sub-definitions of causal research on the net, as well as a wealth of material using keywords for Google searches:

• "Causal research"
• "Causal research" problems
• "Causal research" issues
• Causation