Question:

The registrar of a college with a population of N=4,000 full-time students is asked by the president to conduct a survey to measure satisfaction with the quality of life on campus. The table below contains a breakdown of the 4,000 registered full time students, by gender and class designation:

Class Designation Female Male Total

II

III

IV

Total

700 560 1260

520 460 980

500 400 900

480 380 860

2200 1800 4000

The registrar intends to take a probability sample of n= 200 students and project the results from the samples to the population. a. If the frame available from the registrar's files is an alphabetical listing of the names of all registered

students, what type of sample could you take? Discuss. b. c. d. What is the advantage of selecting a simple random sample in part a? What is the advantage of selecting a systematic sample in part a? Suppose that, if the frame available of students based on the gender and class designation in the table,

what type of sample should you take?

Solution:
a. As we have complete list of students in alphabetical order, so a simple random sample can be taken. But if we dont have that list and population fluctuates, a systematic sample i=1, K=20 would be a better choice. If samples are of gender and class, a stratified sample would be the right choice to be used. If we dont have any suitable sampling frame than the choice would be cluster sampling. b. A simple random is one of the easiest sampling method and as we have complete list of students name in alphabetic order so this is the best and easiest way to make samples. c. As in systematic sampling we can define sample size of our own choice so it is easier to select and study. d. Here the best choice would be stratified sample because the frame is based on class and gender which are heterogeneous. With stratified sampling we can divide this heterogeneity into homogenous strata to find the best answer.