@article{Smith_2020, place={Washington DC: American Sociological Association.}, title={Interrogating Causation with Screencasts, a "Clickbait" News Activity, and Short Essays}, url={https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/interrogating-causation-with-screencasts-a}, abstractNote={With this resource, students learn the fundamentals of causal inference and apply these skills to evaluate the outlandish claims found in many internet article headlines ("clickbait"). The resource has three parts. First, at home, students watch two screencast videos that explain confounding variables and reverse causation. The second part occurs in class. Students receive a sheet containing real headlines that imply causal relationships. In triads, students develop explanations of how 1) a confounding variable and 2) reverse causation could undermine the article’s "clickbait" causal claim. Third, at home, each student writes a 5-page essay about a causal claim that has been the subject of sociological debate. In the essay, students explain both the merits of the claim and the ways that confounding variables and/or reverse causation could undermine it. Depending on the needs of a course, each part of the resource can stand on its own or stand in combination with the other two parts. By emphasizing the underlying logic of causal inference rather than computation, the resource can gently introduce students to causal inference without alienating students who fear numbers. Simultaneously, the resource cultivates skills for scrutinizing internet news sources. The resource suits intro, statistics, and methods courses that have fewer than 35 students.}, journal={TRAILS: Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology}, author={Smith, Christian}, year={2020}, month={Jun.} }