STAT 1430 Recitation 1B Samples and Surveys

1. A pharmaceutical company interested in measuring how often physicians prescribe a certain drug
has selected a simple random sample from each of two groups: M.D. (Medical Doctors) and D.O.
(Doctors of Osteopathic). What is this type of sampling called?
a. Simple random sampling.
b. Stratified random sampling.
c. None of the above.

2. Detailed surveys are sent to 13,000 organizations on the Internet to determine who uses the Internet
more (women or men). 1,468 responses were received. The margin of error was 2.8 percent, with a
confidence level of 95%. What was the response rate for this survey?
a. 1,468
b. 95%
c. 2.8%
d. 11.29%

3. A survey asks 500 randomly selected U.S. taxpayers whether they have ever cheated on their taxes.
Which of the following is an example of response bias in this situation?
a. Bob does not respond to the survey.
b. Bob answers “no” even though he really has cheated on his taxes.
c. Bob was not selected to participate in the survey.
d. All of the above are examples of response bias.

4. A sample of Americans was surveyed and asked to report the amount of money spent annually on
reading materials. Suppose they originally sampled 200 people but the data set actually contains 133
values. What kind problem is represented as a result?
a. Nonresponse
b. Possible bias in the data we do have
c. Lower level of precision in the results due to smaller actual sample than planned
d. All of the above

5. A survey of 15 randomly selected employees from Bob’s factory was taken to find out how many
sick days they took due to colds and flu last year. Suppose Bob didn’t take a random sample.
Suppose the employees in the sample were those who responded to an advertisement Bob put out to
the whole company, looking for volunteers to participate in the survey. What kind of error would be
made here? THERE IS ONLY ONE CORRECT ANSWER – CHECK YOUR LECTURE NOTES.
a. Undercoverage
b. Nonresponse
c. Bias due to a self-selected sample
d. None of the above

6. A statistics student wants to know what OSU students think about parking on campus. To obtain a
sample of 20 students, he knocks on the doors of residents in his dorm until he finds 20 people home
who can take his survey about parking. This is a:
a. Simple random sample
b. Stratified sample
c. Convenience sample
 STAT 1430 Recitation 1B Samples and Surveys

Use the following prompt to answer questions 7 and 8: A marketing research firm wishes to determine if
the adult men in Laramie, Wyoming would be interested in a new upscale men’s clothing store. From a
list of all residential addresses in Laramie, the firm selects a simple random sample of 100 and mails a
brief questionnaire to each.

7. The population of interest is

a. all adult men in Laramie, Wyoming.
b. all residential addresses in Laramie, Wyoming.
c. the members of the marketing firm that actually conducted the survey.
d. the 100 addresses the survey was mailed to.

8. The sample in this survey is

a. all adult men in Laramie, Wyoming.
b. all residential addresses in Laramie, Wyoming.
c. the members of the marketing firm that actually conducted the survey.
d. the 100 addresses the survey was mailed to.

9. When every possible sample with the same number of observations is equally likely to be chosen,
the selected sample is called:
a. Simple random sample.
b. Stratified sample
c. Biased sample

10. The website for ESPN is interested in who the greatest baseball player of all time was. They run an
internet poll to figure this out. They ask every visitor to the site if they would like to participate in
the poll, and then ask them who the greatest ballplayer of all time was. They show the results at the
end of the polling period. This is a:
a. Simple random sample
b. Stratified sample
c. Volunteer sample
d. Convenience sample

11. Which of the following problems in surveys can cause bias?

a. Nonresponse
b. Undercoverage
c. Question wording
d. All of the above

12. Each week the Gallup Poll questions a sample of 1500 adult U.S. residents to help estimate the
national opinion on a wide variety of issues. Which of the following describes the population?
a. The 1500 adult U.S. residents contacted by Gallup.
b. All adult U.S. residents
c. The opinions of adult U.S. residents
d. None of the above

13. What type of bias are you likely to find when you look at customer satisfaction surveys? (more than
one possible answer). Explain.
 STAT 1430 Recitation 1B Samples and Surveys

14. The following question is being considered for inclusion in a survey regarding cell-phones. “Some
cell phone users have developed brain cancer. Should all cell phones come with a warning label
explaining the danger of using cell phones?” You don’t want this question to be included as written.
Explain why this question is biased AND create a new question that avoids bias yet still helps the
researcher find out what they want to know?

15. A politician wants to estimate the mean age of registered voters in her district. Unfortunately, she
does not have a complete list of households. How can she go about attempting to do a random
sample to get the information she needs and represent the population? (More than one possible
answer here as long as it’s justifiable and reasonable.)

Next 2 problems: You are on the staff of a member of Congress who has 5,000 constituents (voters in
her district.) She is considering a bill that would require all employers to provide health insurance for
their employees. She sends a survey to all 5,000 constituents asking them their opinion on this bill
(support, oppose, no opinion.) Of the 1,128 surveys received, 871 of them oppose the bill (which equals
77.2%.)

16. What is the response rate for this survey?

17. Looking at these results you are not convinced that a majority ( > 50%) of all the voters in her
district necessarily oppose this bill. State briefly how you would explain this to the congresswoman.
Use an argument based on statistical ideas.

18. Look up one of the latest graphs shown in today’s USA TODAY SNAPSHOTS website:
http://www.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/news/2015/04/07/usa-today-snapshots/6340793/. Pick one
that can be represented as a graph, sketch the graph, and critique the sample and the graph in terms
of the criteria we discussed in class. If there is not enough information to evaluate certain things,
describe what else is needed.

For problems 19-22: Use the “Mobile Mindset Study” done by Lookout, Inc., a cybersecurity company,
on the topic of Smart Phone usage which we looked at in recitation 1A (the PDF is on Carmen).

19. Looking at the five graphs in the report, give an example of a question that could result in a lot of
nonresponse bias.

20. Looking at the five graphs in the report, give an example of a question that could result in a lot of
response bias.

21. Looking at the survey methodology section at the bottom, is there undercoverage? Why or why not?
Use the definition of undercoverage from your notes to answer this question.

22. Is it possible to know the response rate of this survey? Why or why not?
 STAT 1430 Recitation 1B Samples and Surveys

23. A researcher wants to study the effects of computer activities vs. pencil and paper activities on
learning math for preschool children. Thirty children will participate in her study; 15 children using
computer activities and 15 children using pencil and paper activities. She wants to compare the
performance of the two groups. To form the two groups, she will choose between two procedures.
Which procedure is the best to use and why? (If they are equally effective explain why.)

Procedure 1: She brings the children into a room with 30 desks; 15 desks have computers and
15 desks have a paper and pencil. She tells the children to go to whichever table they want.

Procedure 2: She flips a coin for each child. Heads = computer group and Tails = paper and
pencil group. Each child goes to their assigned group; when one group is filled the rest go to the
other group.