If you wanted to investigate the causes of child abuse, would you use the “experimental” or the “causal-comparative” method? Explain.
As described in the text regarding the concepts of testing for cancer-causing effects of smoking, it is explained that it would be unethical to require someone to smoke in order to create your trial group. Likewise, requiring a child to be abused would also be unethical, and I would add immoral, illegal, and reprehensible to that as well.
As such the only ethical choice would be to use the causal-comparative method, and examining the demographics similarities and differences between children that have been abused and those who have not, and determine which inferences might be drawn from that date in order to form a hypothesis. The hypothesis could be reverse evaluated against already obtained data to determine how closely the assumed causal actions do in fact result in the expected result of child abuse, and new experiments, with the understanding of what the margin of error determined means in regards to the subject, could be formulated to both determine the accuracy of the hypothesis and to refine it to fit factors that may not have been observed or remarked upon in the initial information collected.
The key danger is the confusing of causal and correlative factors, particularly in cases under observation where child abuse is not known to have occurred despite the appearances of expected causal factors. The contrast between the desire to determine the true causal factors, while also the simple human compassion that would create a desire to stop any abuse that is believed to be likely based upon causal factors present, particularly in cases where no evidence of such abuse exists, could be the observer in a position of personal and professional moral quandary.
The only way in which I would think such a study could be conducted is after the fact, and any prior to the fact conclusions would be highly questionable and of dubious ethical standards, particularly considering the repercussions of accusations of either actual or potential child abuse may have on as yet innocent parents.
I will step out further on this matter and explain that I myself suffered from child abuse of several different kinds. This is not simply a rhetorical question or an exercise of theoretical morality to me. As such, my opinion of this matter cannot be unbiased. Further, due to my bias, I could not personally be involved in such a study as I would not be capable of the degree of personal detachment that would be required to achieve accurate results.