Affordable Care Act Sample Assignment

1)

a. What is the relationship between political parties and support of the Affordable Care Act?

  • Dependent variable- support of the Affordable Care Act
  • Independent variable- type of political party
  • I believe there is a relationship between the political party one is affiliated with and support of the Affordable Care Act because different political parties have different problems/causes that they support, such as the Affordable Care Act.

b. What is the relationship between an individual’s race and ethnicity and their income?

  1. Dependent variable- income
  2. Independent variable- race and ethnicity
  3. Many studies and research datasets have shown that here is a relationship between income and race/ethnicity as minorities tend to make less money annually than Caucasians.

c. What is the relationship between the number of police and crime rates and in a city?

  • Dependent variable- crime rates      
  • Independent variable- number of police
  • I believe there is a relationship between the number of police and the crime rates in a city because the job of police is to help reduce crime rates. If there were more police in a city, then hopefully crime rate would decrease.

d. What is the relationship between an individual’s marital status and their overall life satisfaction?

  • Dependent variable- life satisfaction
  • Independent variable- marital status
  • I believe that there is a relationship between marital status and overall life satisfaction for a few reasons. Firstly, if someone is married to someone that they no longer love or do not get along with, it could be expected that their overall life satisfaction would be lower. The same could be true of someone who was happily married.

e. What is the relationship between an individual’s age and their support for marijuana legalization?

  • Dependent variable- support for marijuana legalization
  • Independent variable- age
  • I believe these two variables have a relationship because a person’s age can impact their views and support of marijuana. For example, individuals who are in their 30’s and younger are typically known for being more liberal and open to the legalization of marijuana as well as see it as being beneficial while older adults typically tend to see it more as a drug that can bring about negative consequences.

f. What is the relationship between one’s ethnicity and their care of elderly parents?

  • Dependent variable- care of elderly parents
  • Independent variable- ethnicity
  • I believe there is a relationship between these two variables because some ethnicities cultures emphasize the care of elderly parents and consider it an honor, while others do not.

2)

a. nominal

b. nominal

c. nominal

d. ordinal

e. nominal

f. interval-ratio

g. ordinal

3)

a. Earnings of higher education graduates

b. annual income (interval-ratio), gender (nominal)

c. Inferential

  • because she is able to make inferences about the population from observation as well as analysis of the sample population.

4)

a. interval-ratio, ordinal

  • interval-ratio would be better because you can compare the ages of individuals as well as compare how much older or younger someone is than someone else. Zero is also meaningful.

b. interval-ratio, ordinal

  • interval-ratio would be better because similar to above, one can compare how much bigger or smaller individual’s incomes are as well as compare by how much bigger or smaller the incomes are. Zero is also meaningful.

c. nominal, ordinal

  • nominal would be better because religion should not be rank-ordered. In addition, we do not necessarily know the magnitude of differences between the categories of religion (also because it is not numerical).

d. ordinal, interval-ratio

  1. interval-ratio would be better because you can compare the performance of two students as well as compare how much better one student is doing in comparison to another student. Zero also is meaningful.

e. interval-ratio, ordinal

  • ordinal would be better here as class is typically rank-ordered. We also do not know the differences between the categories of classes.

f. interval-ratio, ordinal

  • interval-ratio would be better because you can rank the number of children a family/individual has. In addition, zero is meaningful.