Identity theft. A study of identity theft looked at how well consumers protect themselves from this increasingly prevalent crime. The behaviors of 61 college students were compared with the behaviors of 59 nonstudents.³⁸ Participants in the study were asked to respond “Yes” or “No” to the following statement: “When asked to create a password, I have used either my mother’s maiden name, or my pet’s name, or my birth date, or the last four digits of my social security number, or a series of consecutive numbers.” For the students, 22 agreed with this statement while 30 of the nonstudents agreed.

(a) Display the data in a two-way table and analyze the data. Write a short summary of your results.

(b) The students in this study were junior and senior college students from two sections of a course in Internet marketing at a large northeastern university. The nonstudents were a group of individuals who were recruited to attend commercial focus groups on the West Coast conducted by a lifestyle marketing organization. Discuss how the method of selecting the subjects in this study relates to the conclusions that can be drawn from it.