Week 6

A researcher has decided to do a study of people who hunt in a nearby national forest. He asks a friend, whom he knows to be a hunter, if he would consent to an interview. He interviews his friend, and then asks his friend if he could name other people who hunted in the forest. His friend provides him with five names. The researcher contacts those five people, interviews them, and asks each of those people for names of other hunters. This sampling technique is known as:

• Casual sampling
• Personal sampling
• Key informant interviewing
• Snowball sampling

A subset of the population used to study the population as a whole is known as a/an:

• Target population
  
• Sampling frame
• Sample
• Element

In the population of New Town, 30 percent of the people work for Bigg Corporation, 30 percent work in the public sector (including education), and 40 percent are self-employed. In a survey of 100 residents of New Town, 40 people worked for Bigg Corporation, 40 percent worked in the public sector, and 20 people were self-employed. This sample was:

• Overrepresented
• Probability
• Nonprobabilistic
• Unrepresentative

When a 1936 Literary Digest poll found overwhelming support for Alfred Landon’s presidential bid over Franklin Delano Roosevelt, they made an erroneous prediction that Landon would defeat FDR. What are the probable sources for error in their poll that helps explain their mistake?

• Non-response rate was high
• Sample was not representative of the population
  
• Failed to use probability sampling techniques
  
• All of these

Which of the following is NOT a means for generating a random sample?

• Stopping the first people you meet on the street
  
• Flipping a coin
  
• Rolling a die
  
• Using a lottery method

Which of the following is false regarding simple random sampling?

• A procedure identifies cases strictly on the basis of chance.
• A random number table can be used to draw a simple random sample.
• Computers can generate random numbers, cases, or phone numbers.
• Simple random sampling can be accomplished by standing on a corner and picking people "at random."

Which of the following is not a procedure for simple random selection of elements?

• Assigning consecutive numbers to elements, and selecting on the basis of a random number table
  
• Selecting every nth (e.g. 9th) element from a sampling frame, after at the beginning of the alphabet (or 1st case). 
  
• Using a computer to dial random digits after a phone prefix
  
• Writing all elements down on small pieces of paper, mixing them up, and selecting them like they do in the lottery

Which of the following is true?

• In most cases the raw size of the sample is less important than the fraction of the population that the sample represents.
  
• A smaller sample tends to be more representative of a population than a larger drawn from the same population.
  
• A sample of 3 percent of the population is always more representative of the population than a sample of 2 percent of the population, regardless of the size of the sample drawn.
• The more heterogeneous a population is, the more likely a sample will be representative of it.

Which of the following statements is FALSE regarding sample quality?

• Sample quality cannot be evaluated if population is not specified.
  
• Sample quality cannot be evaluated if selection technique is not specified.
  
• Sample quality is determined by the selection method itself, not the actual sample obtained.
  
• Generalizations are conjecture, no matter how strong the sample generalization.

Quantitative research favors larger samples. 

• True
• False