Question

You want to research college students' opinion of the death penalty. Your hypothesis is that there is a relationship between enrollment in higher education institutions and an individual's opinion of the death penalty (for or against). With this in mind, what type of probability sample would you select? Why?

How would you obtain your sample? Discuss steps fully

Answer 1

(a)What type of probability sample would you select?

We would select the college going students randomly since the probability sample is selection of sample using the probability theories of randomization.

(b)Why?

We want to test if there is relationship between the enrollment in higher education institutions and the opinion on death penalty. This means that our population of study is the college students. So we would obviously choose a sample out of them. This is because a sample comes from its population.

(c)How would you obtain your sample?

There are different techniques of probability sampling all of which have random selection: Simple random, Stratified , Systematic, Cluster.

Simple and Systematic sampling involves lot of work and theres no statistical advantage since it simply random and based on intergers (Eg systematically every 5th student's opinion would be chosen.)

Where are Stratified and clustered can be used together.

First the minimum number of sample size has to be determined. The sample can be a clustered one. First the areas can be chosen so as to get a diversified sample. From among the areas one college can be selected and from among the majors the required number of students can be randomly selected. This will provide a random and unbiased sample. Then surveys can be held to get the opinions. Then the male and female opinions can be separated to get a better analysis.