Question

Researchers surveyed 1,000 randomly selected adults in the U.S. A statistically significant, strong positive association was found between income level and the number of containers of recycling they typically collect in a week. Please select the best interpretation of this result.

A) We can conclude that earning more money causes more recycling among U.S. adults because the association is statistically significant.

B) We cannot conclude that earning more money causes more recycling among U.S. adults because this type of study does not allow us to infer causation.

C) We cannot conclude that earning more money causes more recycling among U.S. adults because the sample is too small to draw any conclusions about the association between income level and amount of recycling for adults in the U.S.

Answer 1

It is given that there is a statistically significant strong positive association between the income level and the number of containers of recycling they typically collect in a week. This means that we can say that earning more money results in more recycling among US adults because the association is statistically significant

option A is incorrect because it is not a valid reason for causation

option B is correct because association is not enough to say that there is a causation

option C is incorrect because the sample size is large enough, i.e. sample size is more than 30.