Chapter 3.1, Problem 6PB

How to fight terrorism? A survey of 1000 adult Americans (Rasmussen Reports, April 15, 2004) asked each whether the best way to fight terrorism is to let the terrorists know we will fight back aggressively or to work with other nations to find an international solution. The first option was picked by 53% of the men but by only 36% of the women in the sample. Assume there were 600 men and 400 women in the sample.

1. a. Identify the response variable and the explanatory variable and their categories.
2. b. Construct a contingency table (similar to Table 3.1) that shows the counts for the different combination of categories.
3. c. Use a contingency table to display the percentages for the two options, separately for females and for males.
4. d. Explain why the percentages reported here are conditional percentages.
5. e. Sketch a graph similar to Figure 3.2 that compares the responses for men and women.
6. f. Compute the difference of proportions and the ratio of proportions and interpret each.
7. g. Give an example of how results would have to differ from these for you to conclude that there’s no evidence of association between these variables.