The adult bookstore near our campus has been raided and closed by police. Your r

Question

The adult bookstore near our campus has been raided and closed by police. Your research methods class has decided to poll a sample of 90 students to find out: whether he or she supports the store’s closing, how many times each has visited the store, and whether he or she agrees that “pornography causes sexual assaults on women.” The class also collects information on gender, political philosophy, and major of the students.

1.What is the objective of the research?

2.What is the population studied?

3.What is the sample?

4.What is the unit of analysis?

5.What is the dependent variable? (What level of measurement would you use for it? In other words, given what you know about measurement, how do you think the respondents were asked to reply to the questions?)

6.What are the independent variables? (What level of measurement would you use for each variable? In other words, given what you know about measurement, how do you think the respondents were asked to reply to the questions?)

Explanation / Answer

<Please rate the answer and comment if you need any further explanation>

1. The main objective of the study is to see if "Proneness to watching/reading Pornography causes Sexual assualts on women", but since this topic is a sensitive one hence the main objective is hooded under a more easily attainable question of wheather the student community supports the closing down of the adult book store near the campus.

2. The underlying population is the entire student community of the college campus.

3. The sample on which the survey has been done is the 90 students of the campus who were enquired on various questions to achieve a decision to our objective in part(1).

4. The unit of analysis is each individual student among the 90 student sample.

5. The dependant variable is a binary variable - '1' indicates that the student support the closing down of the adult bookstore and in turn supports the statement that 'pornography causes sexual assault on women to increase'. '0' indicates that the student opposes the shutting down of the store and in turn does not agree with the statement that 'pornography causes sexual assault on women'.

To get the answer on this, we can pose a direct question to the respondent on wheather she/he supports the closing down of the book-store or not - but given the sensitivity of the topic we might not get true answers.

Best way will be not to directly pose the question, but instead quote a statement of type - "Alas! the adult bookstore has closed now. It was so good to have the store." and notice the reaction of the respondent on this.

If the respondent seems to support your concern then the dependant variable takes value '0',i.e the respondent is against the closing of the store.

However if the respondent becomes radical and comments that it is good that the store is closed now then the dependant variable is '1'.

6. The independant variables are all variables on which information is collected expect for "If respondent supports closing of store" and if "respondent thinks that Pornography increases sexual assault attempt on women". So the indepandant variables are:

Gender (We can directly note down the respondent's gender),

Major subject of students (Can be directly asked),

Political philosophy (can be directly asked to choose from one of the options - Conservative and Pro-American or Liberal) and

Number of times student has visited the store (say in a week) (this question cannot be directly asked - instead we can pose a comment of type "I really enjoyed going there, must have gone there atleast thrice a week" and wait for the respondents reaction.

The respondant may say that she/he has gone but not that frequently - then independant variable takes average value of say 1.5 per week,

if respondant reacts that she/he never went there, then variable value is 0,

if she/he comments that she/he was as frequent as you, then asnwer is 3 and so on.)

The main point of this study is the sensitivity of the topic. Hence to get to a true answer regarding mentality and inclination of students towards pornography or women assault, we need to disguise the questions and note responses while noting the respondents reaction to sensitive questions.

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