Exam 1: Statistics, Data, and Statistical Thinking

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. The university is interested in using the information from the sample of 250 students collected to learn information about the entire student parking population. Would this be an application of descriptive or inferential statistics?

As part of an economics class project, students were asked to randomly select 500 New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) stocks from the Wall Street Journal. As part of the project, students were asked to summarize the current prices (also referred to as the closing price of the stock for a particular trading date) of the collected stocks using graphical and numerical techniques. What type of variable is being collected?

The average age of the students in a statistics class is 22 years. Does this statement describe descriptive or inferential statistics?

The process of using information from a sample to make generalizations about the larger population is called statistical inference.

What is meant by a representative sample?

Which data about paintings would not be qualitative?

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

The amount of television viewed by today's youth is of primary concern to Parents Against Watching Television (PAWT). 250 parents of elementary school-aged children were asked to estimate the number of hours per week that their child watches television. Identify the type of data collected by PAWT.

A university was interested in student reaction to a proposal to spend more on athletic scholarships and less on academic scholarships. 35 student athletes were surveyed. What type of problem has occurred?

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. Forty-six hundred Florida residents were surveyed.Which of the following is the population used in the study?

A fan observes the numbers on the shirts of a girl's soccer team. Identify the type of data collected.

As part of an economics class project, students were asked to randomly select 500 New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) stocks from the Wall Street Journal. As part of the project, students were asked to summarize the current prices (also referred to as the closing price of the stock for a particular trading date) of the collected stocks using graphical and numerical techniques. Would this be an application of descriptive or inferential statistics?

Parking at a university has become a problem. University administrators are interested in determining the average time it takes a student to find a parking spot. An administrator inconspicuously followed 240 students and recorded how long it took each of them to find a parking spot. Identify the population of interest to the university administration.