A study, conducted for Planned Parenthood by Rand whose results were published in 2004, claims to be the first to find a "direct cause-and-effect link" between watching suggestive TV shows and early teen sex. The study "resulted from phone interviews of adolescents ages 12 to 17, first in 2001 and again a year later in 2002. It found that children who watched the most sexsaturated television [. . .] were twice as likely to engage in sexual activity within the next year than those who reported a low level of television watching."40
a. From the researchers' standpoint, what are the explanatory and response variables involved here?
b. Was this an experiment or an observational study?
c. Describe what would be the case if the roles of explanatory and response variables were reversed; is this a plausible scenario?
d. Discuss the researchers' claim to have found a "direct cause-and-effect link."
e. Researchers must decide whether to report the percentages engaging in sexual activity for those who did versus those who did not watch suggestive TV shows, or the percentages watching suggestive TV shows for those who did versus those who did not engage in sexual activity. At this stage, are they mainly concerned with data production, displaying and summarizing data, probability, or statistical inference?