Question

Collect data from 30 people from your work, school, neighborhood, family, or other group. Ask a quantitative question, such as, “How many pets do you have?” or “How many college classes have you taken?” Explain your population, sample, and sampling method and what level of measurement your data is (nominal, ordinal, interval, or ratio). Use technology ( Excel) to create a Histogram of your data and explain the shape of the distribution (bell-shaped, uniform, right-skewed, or left-skewed) and possible reasons why the distribution is this shape. Explain the importance of this data, what you find interesting about the data, and why the public should know. Look up a newspaper, e-pub, or journal article that confirms or denies the results of your small study.

Please explain briefly.

Answer 1

Part A: -

Sampling Method used for this Case: -

The sampling method that I will prefer in this regard is "Stratified Sampling Technique"

This technique divides the elements of the population into small subgroups (strata) based on the similarity in such a way that the elements within the group are homogeneous and heterogeneous among the other subgroups formed. And then the elements are randomly selected from each of these strata. We need to have prior information about the population to create subgroups.

In this case, the subgroups will be: -

1. Your Work

2. School

3. Neighborhood

4. Family etc.

This technique is preferred in order to create a diversity in the sample.

Or,

If you just want to consider a single group, then Simple Random Sampling is preferred.

In this technique, every element has an equal chance of getting selected to be the part sample. It is used when we don’t have any kind of prior information about the target population.

For example: -  

If a random selection of 30 students from class of 150 student is to be done, then in this case, each student has equal chance of getting selected. Here probability of selection is 30/150 = 1/5.

Part B: -

Histogram: -

Let us assume that a sample of 30 is selected and the query asked was: - "The number of college classes that they have taken"

Suppose there are 8 classes in a day, hence the data that was collected (sample) is shown below: -

The histogram is shown below: -

Here the grouping is done as: -

1. 0 to 2

2. 2 to 5

3. 5 to 8

(I have written it in the above manner because in the data the decimal point after the number doesn't make any sense hence only the whole number is considered)

Analysis: -

Maximum number of people has attended classes more than 5, i.e. in the range of 6 to 8.

The graph is skewed towards left, where Mean < Median < Mode.

Part C: -

The data is very interesting because it helps to estimate the maximum preference (frequency analysis) of a group in a particular field/choice. If you are a dean of an university, with the help of such an analysis, you can analyse whether students are attending full classes, how many are irregular etc. This also helps to understand whether students are taking interest in the classes and so on.

(These assumptions were made based on the data mentioned above)

Other uses of a Histogram: -

1. Identifying the most common process outcome.

2. Identifying data symmetry.

3. Spotting deviations.

4. Verifying equal distribution.

5. Spotting areas that require little effort etc.