Day 5 – Homework (11.3) – Collecting Data

Determine whether the data is collected from a population or a sample. Explain your reasoning.

1) The address of every student in the school.

2) A survey of 80 people who access a website.

3) The GPA of high school students in the United States.

4) The color of every third car that passes your house.

5) A survey of 100 fans at the football game with 1800 spectators.

Part II Identify the population and the sample. Explain your reasoning.

6) In an office building, a survey of 648 employees found that 147 of them ride the subway to work each

day.

7) In Florida, a survey of 2500 homeowners found that 1145 of them have switched their homeowner’s

insurance policy to a different company within the last 3 years.

8) In a school district, a survey of 1,300 high school students found that 1,001 of them like the new healthy

food choices in the cafeteria.

Part III Determine whether the numerical value is a parameter or a statistic. Explain your reasoning.

9) Thirty four percent of the surveyed hockey players first played hockey before their 10th birthday.

10) Eighty-two percent of all the tickets sold were for the Saturday matinee.

11) Seventy-three percent of all of the students in a school would prefer to have school dances on a

Saturday.

12) A survey of U.S. adults found that 10% believe a cleaning product they use is not safe for the

environment.

Name the type of sample described.

13. The owners of a chain of 260 retail stores want to assess employee job satisfaction. Employees

from 12 stores near the headquarters are surveyed.

14. The owner of a community pool wants to ask patrons whether they think the water should be

warmer. Patrons are divided into four age groups, and a sample is randomly surveyed from each age

group.

15. A taxicab company wants to know whether its customers are satisfied with the service. Drivers

survey every tenth customer during the day.

Determine the type of sample and explain if it is bias or not.

16. A town council wants to know whether residents support having an off-leash area for dogs in the

town park. Eighty dog owners are surveyed at the park.

17. A writer at Sports Illustrated wants to determine whether baseball coaches think wooden bats

should be mandatory in collegiate baseball. The sportswriter divides the colleges by division and

then selects a random sample from each division.

18. The city of Clarendon hills puts a poster up in its town square asking people to take an online

survey about restaurant options in the town.

19. Marquette University wants to conduct a survey of 5,000 alumni. Describe a method of

surveying the alumni using a random sample.

20. Go online and look up the Literary Digest Poll. Please tell what the survey was for and why it

failed.

Identify the method of data collection

21. A researcher uses technology to estimate the damage that will be done if a volcano erupts.

22. The owner of Tally’s asks the customers on a Saturday night whether they are satisfied with the

quality of their meal.

23. A researcher places bacteria samples in two different climates. The researcher then measures

the bacteria growth in each sample after 3 days.

Determine whether the survey question may be biased. Explain your reasoning.

24. A police officer asks mall visitors, “Do you wear your seat belt regularly?”

25. Do you favor government funding to help prevent acid rain??

26. Do you agree that the budget of our city should be cut??

27. Please rate your manager on each of the following descriptive scales. Place a checkmark on the

space between each pair of words that best indicates your opinion:

Sociable 1 2 3 4 5 Unsociable

Kind 1 2 3 4 5 Cruel

Hard 1 2 3 4 5 Soft

Successful 1 2 3 4 5 Unsuccessful

Wise 1 2 3 4 5 Foolish

Weak 1 2 3 4 5 Strong