Question

A random sample of sociology majors at the University of Methods were asked a series of questions about their major advisor. Interpret their answers to the following question: "My advisor encourages me to see him/her."

Level of Agreement frequency:

Strongly agree - 19

Agree - 29

Undecided - 34

Disagree - 13

Strongly disagree - 14

No answer - 44

Answer 1

The given results indicate that a major part of the sample chose to not disclose their thoughts about their majors advisors ( 44 chose no answer’) while 34 of the 153 participants are indecisive about whether their professors encourage guidance outside the classroom. Moreover, the proportion of the sample which shows strong disagreement with the given attitude statement is minimum (13 participants show relative disagreement, and 14 strongly disagree) indicating that the sample by and large does not completely disagree about their majors advisor’s level of involvement in their academic lives. The higher proportion of indecisive answers in the data may indicate towards a tendency towards social desirability in the sample as the majors students may be apprehensive about the repercussions of their true responses and may have therefore chosen to take a neutral response to the attitude statement instead of take an extreme position towards either agreeing or disagreeing.