Exam 1: Statistics, Data, and Statistical Thinking

What method of data collection would you use to collect data for a study where a political pollster wishes to determine if his candidate is leading in the polls?

In a survey of 3000 high school students, 15% of those surveyed read at least one best-seller each month. Give an example of a descriptive statement and an inferential statement that could be made based on this information.

A census is feasible when the population of interest is small.

The manager of a car dealership records the colors of automobiles on a used car lot. Identify the type of data collected.

Which type of problem has occurred when inaccuracies exist in the values of the data recorded?

When using data from a published source, it is not important to know how the data were collected and whether randomization was used.

A study attempted to estimate the proportion of Florida residents who were willing to spend more tax dollars on protecting the Florida coastline from environmental disasters. Thirty-two hundred florida residents were surveyed.Which of the following is the population used in the study?

A health food company has the following statement on their new product packaging: "Prevents all types of cancer!" (Fact: Past studies have shown that some ingredients in the new product have been know to possibly reduce the risk of many types of cancer). Discuss why it is unethical to make this statement.

A student worked on her statistics project in the library and found a reference book that contained the median family incomes for all 50 states. On her project, she would report her data as being Collected __________.

Measurement is the process of assigning numbers to variables of individual population units.

Parking at a large university has become a very big problem. University administrators are interested in determining the average parking time (e.g. the time it takes a student to find a parking spot) of its students. An administrator inconspicuously followed 250 students and carefully recorded their parking times. Identify the sample of interest to the university administration.

A watchdog group is investigating how people are treated during the foreclosure process. Surveys were mailed to a random sample of 300 people who had recently been threatened with foreclosure. 75 of the surveys were returned by the postal service because the intended recipients had moved And left no forwarding address. What type of problem has occurred?

A middle school was interested in surveying their students to find out opinions about the schools media center. To facilitate data collection, the homeroom period was extended 30 minutes to allow everyone in the school ample time to respond to a short questionnaire. Unfortunately, it was learned after the surveys had been completed that all honors students in the middle school were on an all-day field trip and away from school for the entire day. The exclusion of their input into the survey would be considered which type of sampling problem?

An insurance company conducted a study to determine the percentage of cardiologists who had been sued for malpractice in the previous ten years. The sample was randomly chosen from a national directory of doctors. What is the variable of interest in this study?