Vida is studying the connection between school grades and time spent using social media. She finds a strong correlation, showing students with lower grades spend more time using social media. She decides that before she can claim increased use of social media causes grades to drop, she must make sure the social media came before the low grades. Which criterion of causality is she concerned with?

a. covarianceb. statistical significancec. temporal precedenced. internal validity

c. temporal precedence

Explanation:

Temporal precedence is one among the three criterias that leads to a cause and effect relationship.

A temporal precedence entails that the criteria for assessing causation is that the causal variable must Precede the effect it is supposed

to cause.

This simply implies that the cause must come before the effect.

Hence, Mida trying to ensure that the cause of low grade was because of social, and making sure that social media comes before low grade. This is putting the cause of the low grade before the effect.

Therefore, the experiment is an example of temporal precedence research.