A study by the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) found that 277 in a sample of 543 15-to-16-year-olds in the Faroe Islands had consumed five or more alcoholic beverages in a row at least once in the past month, compared to 1,207 in a sample of 8,940 15-to-16-year-olds in Poland.38
a. Which one of these is a better summary of the results, or are they both equally good?
1. Because 1,207 is more than four times as much as 277, we can say that the Polish youths were more than four times as likely to have engaged in excessive drinking in the past month.
2. Because 277/543 = 0.51 is almost four times as much as 1,207/8,940 = 0.135, we can say that the Faroe Island youths were almost four times as likely to have engaged in excessive drinking in the past month.
b. Alcohol consumption is treated here as a categorical variable. Would it have been just as easy to find out how many liters of alcohol the youths had consumed in the past month, and compared means for the two countries? Explain.
c. If researchers are deciding whether to ask the youths, "How much alcohol did you drink in the past month?" or "Did you consume five or more alcoholic beverages in a row at least once in the past month?" are they mainly concerned with data production, displaying and summarizing data, probability, or statistical inference?