Question

Dr. olson is studying the importance of privacy to people of different ages. in a cross-sectional study, she finds that people in their sixties are more reluctant to reveal personal information than are college students. what is the best conclusion?

Answer 1

A possible conclusion is that older people (in this case, people in their sixties) care more about their privacy than younger people. However, two important things need to be noted in this experiment:

1. This conclusion does not provide an explanation as to why this might be the case. We would need more information if we want to develop a theory that provides reasons for this situation to happen.

2. There might be other factors we have not study that might alter our conclusion. So it could only be a hypothesis until we have more information to rule other possibilities out.