Question

Suppose that you as a researcher wanted to examine the impact of police officer rank on perceptions of friendliness by citizens in College Park, MD. Rank is measured as patrol officer, sergeant or captain, and citizen perception is captured by a scale ranging from -50 to 50 and measured in a survey given to 1,000 randomly selected people after an interaction with a police officer. 500 people talked to a patrol officer, 300 talked to a sergeant and 200 people talked to a captain.

3. What is the a) unit of observation and b) reasonable population for this sample?

4. Identify the a) independent and b) dependent variables.

5. For each variable, name what kind of variable it is (nominal, ordinal, interval, or ratio).

Answer 1

Suppose that you as a researcher wanted to examine the impact of police officer rank on perceptions of friendliness by citizens in College Park, MD. Rank is measured as patrol officer, sergeant or captain, and citizen perception is captured by a scale ranging from -50 to 50 and measured in a survey given to 1,000 randomly selected people after an interaction with a police officer. 500 people talked to a patrol officer, 300 talked to a sergeant and 200 people talked to a captain.

3. What is the a) unit of observation and b) reasonable population for this sample?

a) unit of observation: citizen( a person in College Park, MD)

b) reasonable population for this sample: All citizens in College Park, MD

4. Identify the a) independent and b) dependent variables.

a) independent variable: Rank

b. dependent variable: citizen perception

5. For each variable, name what kind of variable it is (nominal, ordinal, interval, or ratio).

Rank: Ordinal (patrol officer, sergeant or captain)

citizen perception: Ratio ( range from -50 to 50)