Exam 1: The Where, why, and How of Data Collection

Which one of the following is NOT statistical sampling?

An Internet service provider wants to determine its level of customer satisfaction.The best data collection method to obtain the results most quickly is:

A short survey with closed-end questions is likely to have a better response rate than a long survey with open-ended questions.

A cell phone service provider has 14,000 customers.Recently,the sales department selected a random sample of 400 customer accounts and recorded the number of minutes of long distance time used during the previous billing period.The company analyst used Excel to sort these values in order from high to low.She then assigned the highest value a rank of 1,the next highest value a rank of 2,and so forth.These ranks would be considered to be ordinal data.

An Internet service provider has the capability of tracking the time that each of its customers spends connected to the Internet during a month.These data would constitute:

A consumer products company wants to interview customers regarding a new product.If it wishes to adhere to a predetermined pattern of questions in the interview,which of the following would likely be used?

A value computed from a population is called:

One of the advantages of data check sheets is that as the data are being recorded,they are also being displayed in a useful format.

In election years,the polls that are conducted by such companies as Gallup and Harris typically employ stratified random sampling to reduce the number of people that will need to be surveyed.

Recording vehicle type as sedan,minivan,pick-up truck,etc.is an example of qualitative data.

Of the following techniques for collecting data,which one is generally considered the least costly to implement: experiments,telephone surveys,mail questionnaires,direct observation,personal interview?

The sales data for a company measured weekly for the past year would be considered cross-sectional data since the sales values are computed from the entire company.

Typically,it is possible to include a larger number of questions in a phone survey than in a mail survey since it takes less time to complete the survey over the phone.

Questions on a written survey dealing with the characteristics of the respondent (age,income,etc.)are referred to as categorical questions.

One way to improve the response rate for a survey is to administer the surveys directly to the respondents.

If a population is very large,it may be better to select a sample from the population than to try to obtain a census in an effort to reduce measurement error.

Population parameters are descriptive numerical measures,such as an average,that describe the entire population.

When an administrator at a local hospital prepares a series of charts and graphs pertaining to the patients that have stayed at the hospital during the past month,she is using which general category and statistical analysis?

Cross-sectional data is a set of data values observed at successive points in time.

Another term used for statistical sampling is: