In: Statistics and Probability
A political campaign manager, Scott, wants his mayoral candidate, Greg, to win an
upcoming mayoral election. He assumes that the population proportion is 60% in favor of his
candidate, Greg and is normally distributed. Scott needs to know what the smallest sample size is
that he should poll to be 95% sure that the sample proportion is within 6% of the population
proportion.
Solution :
Given that,
= 0.60
1 - = 1 - 0.60 = 0.40
margin of error = E = 6% = 0.06
At 95% confidence level the z is ,
= 1 - 95% = 1 - 0.95 = 0.05
/ 2 = 0.05 / 2 = 0.025
Z/2 = Z0.025 = 1.96 ( Using z table )
Sample size = n = (Z/2 / E)2 * * (1 - )
= (1.96 / 0.06)2 * 0.60 * 0.40
= 256.106
Sample size =257