The one remaining problem is the research design. You say it’s correlational but it should be causal-comparative. The reason is because:
–you are not looking for what goes with what overall (correlation),
–you are instead looking for between-group average differences on something.
This resource explains the difference between ‘correlational’ and ‘causal-comparative’ designs very well:
https://egyankosh.ac.in/ bitstream/123456789/20914/1/ Unit-4.pdf