Sampling

A large corporation wants to find out which benefits plan its employees would prefer. Which procedure would be most likely to obtain a statistically unbiased sample?

• survey a random sample of employees from a list of all employees

• invite all employees to indicate their choices by e-mail

• place suggestion boxes at random locations in the company’s plant and offices

• assemble a group with one member from each department and record the preferences of these employees

A university polled 500 of its students, randomly selecting them proportional to the number of students enrolled in each degree program. Classify the sampling method.

• simple random

• stratified

• convenience

• systematic

• voluntary response

To do market research, a telemarketing firm randomly selected 1000 names from a store’s database and contacted them. Classify the sampling method.

• simple random

• stratified

• convenience

• systematic

• voluntary response

To get reactions about a particular new car, readers of a car magazine were asked to mail in their answers to a survey. Classify this sampling method.

• simple random

• stratified

• convenience

• systematic

• voluntary response

When a random starting point is chosen, followed by every nth individual, this sampling method is _______

• simple random sampling

• cluster random sampling

• stratified random sampling

• systematic random sampling

Systematic random sampling is used to interview residents in 25% of 80 apartments in a building. The sampling interval would be ____

• 4

• 20

• 5

• 16

A simple random sample of 200 people is selected from the 1230 male students in a university psychology course to take part in a psychological test. The population being considered is _____

• 200

• 1230

• people taking part in the test

• male students enrolled in a university psychology course

Which question is unbiased?

• Does the school board have the right to enforce a dress code?

• Do you think the MLA is doing a good job in spite of his questionable character?

• Do you prefer daytime or evening television programming?

• Do you think the government should be allowed to cut down trees willy-nilly to build a new highway?

Which question is biased?

• Do you prefer daytime or evening television programming?

• Should there be a school dress code?

• Do you prefer news or mindless sitcoms?

• Do you think a new highway should be built?

When a research company polls residents about their voting intentions, first-time voters are under-represented. This is an example of:

• sampling bias

• response bias

• non-response bias

• measurement bias