AP Statistics Section 5.1 Designing Samples

In an observational study, we simply observe individuals and measure variables, but we do not attempt to influence the responses.

In an experiment, we impose some treatment on individuals to observe their responses.

A political scientist wants to know what percent of the voting-age population consider themselves conservatives. What would prevent the political scientist from asking every individual of voting age their political affiliation? time & money

In such a case, we gather information about only part of the group in order to draw conclusions about the whole.

The entire group of individuals that we want information about is called the __________. An attempt to collect data from every individual in a population is a called a _______. population census

The smaller part of the population that we actually examine in order to gather information is called a _______. The sample is the part from which we draw conclusions about the whole. sample

Sampling is a very important statistical process because a sample is both immediate and accurate.

Sampling method refers to the process used to choose the sample from a population. Poor sampling methods can produce misleading conclusions, as the following example illustrates.

TV news and sports programs like to conduct call-in polls of public opinion. Telephone companies charge for these calls. The ABC program Nightline asked whether the United Nations should continue to have its headquarters in the U.S. More than 186,000 callers responded, and 67% said “No.” Why might you question the validity of such a survey? Only those people with real strong opinions will call.

Sampling of this type, where people choose themselves by responding to general appeal is called a voluntary response sample.

A properly designed sample showed that 72% of adults wanted the UN to stay! People who go to the trouble to respond to an open invitation are not representative of the entire adult population.

Another example of a bad sampling method is simply choosing individuals who are the easiest to reach. This is called convenience sampling.

Voluntary response sampling and convenience sampling choose samples that are almost guaranteed not to represent the entire population. These sampling methods display ____, or systematic error. A sampling method is biased if it systematically ______ certain outcomes. bias favors

The remedy for bias in choosing a sample is to allow _________________ to do the choosing. Choosing a sample by chance attacks bias by giving all individuals an ______ chance to be chosen. The use of chance to select the sample is the essential principle of statistical sampling. impersonal chance equal

The simplest way to use chance to select a sample is to place names in a hat (the _________) and draw out a handful (the ______). This is the idea of a simple random sample. population sample

A simple random sample (SRS) of size n consists of n individuals from the population chosen in such a way that every sample of size n is equally likely to be chosen.

Example: We need to pick 6 students from a class of 36. The students are sitting in 6 rows with 6 desks in each row. Determine if each sample is a SRS.

a) Seat the students alphabetically and pick the first row. ______ b) Randomly assign students to seats and pick the 3 rd row. ______ c) Alphabetize the students’ names and pick every 6 th name. ______ d) Alphabetize the students’ names and have a computer or calculator pick 6 names. ______ e) Randomly sort the students’ names and pick every 6 th name on the list. ______ f) Arrange the students in any order and use a random digit table. ______ no yes no yes

On the AP test you will be required to use a random digit table (Table B at the back of the book) to choose random samples.

A table of random digits is a long string of the digits 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 with these two properties: 1. Each entry in the table is equally likely to be any of the 10 digits 0 through The entries are independent of each other. ( i.e. knowledge of one part of the table gives no information about any other part)

To make the table easier to read, the digits appear in groups of five and in numbered rows.

Follow these steps to choose an SRS from a random digits table. Assign a numerical label to every individual in the population. _______ Label Identify any numbers you would ignore.

Use Table B to select labels at random. ________ Table Take the digits in the table in singlets, pairs, triplets, etc.

Indicate when you should stop sampling. _____________ Use the labels to identify subjects selected to be in the sample. ______________ stopping rule identify sample

Example: We want to interview a sample of 5 business clients out of a population of 30 business clients in order to find ways to improve client satisfaction. We will use a random digit table to randomly select the five clients.

Assign a value from 01 to 30 to each of the 30 clients. Randomly select a starting point in Table B and read two-digit groups.

Let’s start with line 130, which is: Group the random digits into groups of 2:

Cross out any numbers that are 31 or more. Cross off any repeats of 01 to 30 if they occur. Continue the process until you have 5 two digit numbers.

Identify the 5 clients that correspond to those 5 two-digit numbers