A sociologist recently studied the correlation between

Question

A sociologist recently studied the correlation between career choices of parents and those of their children .Interviews with 2000 young adults revealed that nearly 20% of those whose parents were psychologists were pursuing careers in phychology themselves. The sociologists concluded from this data, that psychologists have more influence on their children's career choice than do members of other professions.

Which of the following would be required to assess the validity of the conclusion above?

a)The percentage of those interviewd whose intended career was the one they actually pursued
b)The percentage of those interviewed whose parents were not psychologists 
c)The percentage of those interviewed who were pursuing the career of their parents
d)The percentage of those interviewed who were planning to become psychologists
eThe percentage of those interviewed who were undecided about their future careers.

Explanations please.

Best.

ashkg · Answer

Going for C.
A. No mention of intention and actual pursuing of careers. Out of scope

B. The only close answer. Children of non-psychologists could still follow or not follow their parents careers. This doesnt help much.

 C. correct ans.  With this we will know all the children who follow their parents professions and also we already know how many follow their psychologist parent. This will give the idea of more or less influence.

D. "planning" is again out of scope
E. "undecided" is out of scope

ywilfred · Answer

a)The percentage of those interviewd whose intended career was the one they actually pursued 
- i'll go with A. This lets us know how many were pursing careers out of their own choice, or merely because they were influenced by their parents.

Arsene_Wenger · Answer

Paraphrase: 20% of the no. interviewed were doing psychology and their parents read it, so bingo, psychologists can influence their children more.

However, what if 30% of the no. interviewed study economics and their parents did? 

So, i expect a comparison with other possible disciplines whose students were interviewed. 

a)The percentage of those interviewd whose intended career was the one they actually pursued
Out of scope.

b)The percentage of those interviewed whose parents were not psychologists
Irrelevant 

c)The percentage of those interviewed who were pursuing the career of their parents
My choice

d)The percentage of those interviewed who were planning to become psychologists
Irrelevant

eThe percentage of those interviewed who were undecided about their future careers.
Irrelevant

It's (C) for me.

shalinikhatri · Answer

C for me for the above reasoning

stne · Answer

Bumping :
Its C for me too.
Please contribute so that we can find the right answer.
Thank you.

Goraksh · Answer

I guess answer is B

The argument states that 20% OF THOSE WHOSE PARENTS ARE PSYCHOLOGISTS chose careers in psychology

But what if only 30% OF THOSE WHOSE PARENTS ARE DOCTORS OR ENGINEERS chose that field

Then engineers or doctors will have more influence then psychologists

Option B makes sense

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Aekagra · Answer

Option C as we need to know what % of students are opting their parents career.

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Lucy Phuong · Answer

Reading your reasoning, I think you may misread the option (B).

b)The percentage of those interviewed whose parents were not psychologists

In such a statistics-related question, I think a mathematical example might help you a lot in understanding properly.

Let's say, we survey 100 young adults in total. 
Just imagine 40% have psychologists parents, so the number of these children is:  A=40% x 100 = 40 
Just call a the number of those whose parents were psychologists were pursuing careers in psychology themselves. From premise,   a/A = 20%

Similarly, we will call  B, C, D...  and  b, c, d...  the number of ones whose parents are not psychologists (doctors, engineers, etc.) and number of ones pursuing their parents' career (doctors, engineers, etc.), respectively.

Considering the percentage a/A only , author concludes that "psychologists have more influence on their children's career choice than do members of other professions".  He must have assumed that there is no any b/B, c/C, or d/D, etc. that is larger than 20%.
 
Option (B) simply provides information about B, C and D, whereas what we actually need is b/B, c/C, or d/D. In other words, (B) doesn't help. OUT.

Option (C) talks about b/B, c/C, d/D hence is exactly what we need to evaluate the conclusion.

A sociologist recently studied the correlation between

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