TY - JOUR AU - Takeuchi, May PY - 2014/01/08 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Exercising Research Literacy: Examining Ecological Fallacy and Testing for Spuriousness JF - TRAILS: Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology JA - TRAILS VL - IS - SE - DO - UR - https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/exercising-research-literacy-examining-ecological SP - AB - American Library Association defines information literacy as "a set of abilities requiring individuals to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information." Similarly, we can discuss a concept of research literacy in terms of our competencies to understand research findings through critical thinking and applying logic in reading empirical data. Without research literacy, we may fall into various fallacies in processing scientific information only to make erroneous conclusions and decisions. In that sense, we all need to develop research literacy to fully appreciate research findings and scientific information to be well-informed citizens. Elaboration on an empirical relationship among variables (Lazarsfeld & Kendall, 1950) is one important method to interpret research results with such literacy. This assignment is designed to help students in the introductory research methods course: 1) be familiar with the elaboration model (that appears in Babbie’s textbook) through a simplified example; and 2) exercise their research literacy while examining "causal" statements for potential ecological/individualistic fallacies. ER -