Sampling
You want to learn what types of books the students in your school like. There are 1,000 students at your school, 250 in each class. You decide to sample 100 sophomores at your schools. You use a computer program to select the sophomores randomly. You find that 25% like fantasy books, 10% like mysteries, 15% like romances, 5% like historical books, and the rest don't like to read at all.
- What is the population of our study?
- How many people are in the population?
- How many people are in your sample?
- What kind of sample is it?
- Based on your results, what percent of the sophomores don't like to read at all?
- Based on your results, how many sophomores like romances?
- Based on your results, how many juniors like mysteries?
- Based on your results, what percent of students at your school like fantasy books?
A town is trying to ways to improve its traffic problem. It wonders if offering a service where people can pick up and rent bikes around the town would help. Alternatively, it is considering a service where people can pick up and rent scooters around the town. Or, it could spend money to expand one of the main roads by one lane. There are 10,000 people living in the town, and it has a large spring festival every year, where many townspeople come to the main park and participate in a range of activities (listening to speakers and concerts, playing games, eating from food trucks, etc.). The town had a booth at the festival, and asked adult town residents to fill out a survey about ways to solve the town's traffic problem. By the end of the festival 567 people had filled out the survey. It found that 50% of people wanted a bike system, 30% of people wanted a scooter system, and 20% of people wanted an expanded road.
- What population did the town want to survey?
- What population did the town survey?
- How many people were in the sample?
- What kind of sample was it?
- Should the town decide to start a bike program?
- Why, or why not, should the town follow the results of this study?