Deck 6: Sampling Strategies

Question 1

The most commonly used value for confidence levels by social science researchers is ________.

A)85%
B)90%
C)95%
D)100%

Answer 1

C

Question 2

This graph depicts a ________,which is a set of estimates that would be observed from a large number of independent samples that are all the same size and drawn using the same method.

A)confidence interval
B)confidence level
C)population distribution
D)sampling distribution

Answer 2

D

Question 3

Megan is collecting data for a research project.She has decided to increase her sample size from 500 participants to 1,000 participants.As her sample size increases,her sampling error ________ and her margin of error ________.

A)decreases;decreases
B)decreases;increases
C)increases;decreases
D)increases;increases

Answer 3

A

Question 4

For which study would you recommend that the researchers use a census instead of a sample?

A)exploring gender differences in the bylines of articles published at the New York Times
B)understanding Americans' attitudes toward the death penalty in the United States
C)examining social movement members' views toward bureaucracy
D)investigating alcohol use on college campuses across the United States

Question 5

In a ________ sample,each individual and each pair of individuals has the same likelihood of being selected into the sample;in a ________ sample,each individual has the same likelihood of being selected into the sample,but not all pairs are equally likely.

A)convenience;cluster
B)convenience;simple random
C)simple random;systematic
D)systematic;convenience

Question 6

According to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index,33.3% of Americans in January 2017 reported feeling worried daily.What do you need to know in order to be confident that the true population parameter is close to 33.3%?

A)sampling error
B)systematic error
C)unbiased error
D)margin of error

Question 7

Dr.Luther has accessed a list of all public elementary schools in the state of California.He randomly selects 20 schools from the list and then randomly selects 100 students at each school to survey.What type of sampling method has Dr.Luther used?

A)cluster
B)simple random
C)stratified
D)systematic

Question 8

Maya has created a sample in which she uses random chance to select participants,and she can calculate the likelihood that a participant will be selected.What type of sample has Maya created?

A)convenience
B)nonprobability
C)probability
D)unbiased

Question 9

A sports website has a poll on its web page asking who readers think is the best NBA player in history: Michael Jordan or LeBron James.This poll will yield results that are biased by ________ error.

A)random
B)sampling
C)systematic
D)unbiased

Question 10

The ________ refers to the probability that a confidence interval includes the population parameter.

A)confidence level
B)margin of error
C)sampling distribution
D)sampling error

Question 11

________ error refers to the difference between the estimates from a sample and the true parameters that arise due to random chance.

A)Random
B)Sampling
C)Systematic
D)Unbiased

Question 12

Divya is interested in learning whether students will support an increase in student fees to supplement child care costs for student parents.There are 10,000 undergraduate and 3,000 graduate students at her university.If she wants to ensure that she has an equal number of undergraduate and graduate students in her sample,what type of sampling method should she use?

A)cluster
B)simple random
C)stratified
D)systematic

Question 13

Political science students want to better understand voting students' views in campus elections.Because they cannot know in advance who will vote,and they want to use a probability sampling method,which sampling method would be best to use?

A)cluster
B)convenience
C)simple random
D)systematic

Question 14

A 95% confidence interval for a 40% approval rating with a 3% margin of error would be

A)37% to 40%.
B)37% to 43%.
C)38.5% to 41.5%.
D)40% to 43% .

Question 15

Which best explains why the Literary Digest poll failed to predict the winner of the 1936 presidential election?

A)There were too many people in the sample.
B)There were too few people in the sample.
C)They needed computers to accurately calculate results.
D)The sample didn't represent the American population.

Question 16

Dr.Nguyen is interested in better understanding which students at the University of Houston study abroad.Her target population is all

A)students at the University of Houston.
B)students in the city of Houston.
C)students in the United States.
D)universities in the United States.

Question 17

When sampling,it is important to

A)collect as much information as possible.
B)be strategic and methodical about what you observe.
C)have a sample size of at least one million people.
D)always have a representative sample of the national population.

Question 18

Julio needs to collect data for his senior honors thesis and has decided to administer surveys to 500 students who are currently enrolled in an Introductory Sociology course at his college.Julio's sample is a good example of a ________ sample.

A)stratified
B)simple random
C)convenience
D)cluster

Question 19

Why do social scientists believe that the U.S.Census would have higher-quality results if it used a sophisticated probability sample?

A)because the census wants to collect detailed demographic,legal,and attitudinal questions
B)because the census often undercounts poor people,urban residents,and people who move frequently
C)because the census often overcounts poor people,urban residents,and people who move frequently
D)because the census does not contact individuals directly

Question 20

Jamal wants to study racial representations on children's TV shows.He has made a list of every TV show that aired on Nick Jr.from 2000 to 2015.This list of TV shows is the ________ he will use to draw a probability sample.

A)population distribution
B)population frame
C)sampling distribution
D)sampling frame

Question 21

Dr.Jackson wants to conduct an in-depth study of bullying in high school.She is particularly interested in better understanding how bullying relationships develop and continue throughout the school year.What strategy do you think would ensure that Dr.Jackson collects the highest-quality data for her study?

A)use purposive sampling and spend a year teaching and observing students at her former public high school in New York City
B)use purposive sampling and spend a year teaching and observing students at an elite private school in New York City
C)use cluster sampling and randomly select five high schools throughout the United States;from each high school,randomly select five students and administer a 10-question survey on bullying
D)use cluster sampling and randomly select 10 high schools throughout the United States;from each high school,randomly select 10 students and administer a 20-question survey on bullying

Question 22

If we want to establish that our conclusions are ________,we must test our hypothesis across a range of subgroups.

A)convenient
B)generalizable
C)random
D)unbiased

Question 23

Two instructors teach a required introductory writing course.Both classes are held at the same time and are similar in terms of demographics and majors.The head of the writing program wants to compare these two classes to understand why there are such different responses to the course.One course's students are highly resistant to taking the course while the other course's students are highly enthusiastic.The writing director is investigating ________ outcomes.

A)contrasting
B)deviant
C)random
D)typical

Question 24

Dr.Lee is interested in studying the success of students at elite public universities.She decided to study the employment placement of students at the University of California-Berkeley,UCLA,and the University of Virginia because these three schools were ranked as the top three public universities by U.S.News and World Report in 2017.Why did Dr.Lee select these schools?

A)because they can be considered typical of other public universities
B)because they can be viewed as deviant compared to other public universities
C)because they appear to be randomly selected in terms of location
D)because of their importance and elite status in higher education

Question 25

If you want to ________,a nonrepresentative sample would be better than a representative one.

A)describe the population
B)estimate national attitudes
C)initially test a hypothesis
D)report national trends

Question 26

How could you create a snowball sample?

A)randomly select respondents from a list
B)ask the first 10 people you see to participate in your study
C)stratify respondents into groups and randomly select from each strata
D)ask a respondent to recommend another person to contact

Question 27

Dr.Lopez is interested in studying the recruitment of high-school athletes.In order for him to provide vivid examples of the impact recruiting can have on high-school athletes,what type of cases would you recommend he focus on?

A)deviant
B)extreme
C)random
D)typical

Question 28

________ sampling allows researchers to make decisions about what additional data to collect based on findings from data they've already collected.

A)Purposive
B)Random
C)Sequential
D)Stratified

Question 29

If you are interested in studying a city that has similar features to the average city in the United States,what type of case should you select?

A)deviant
B)extreme
C)random
D)typical

Question 30

What is one advantage to studying cases with which you are already familiar?

A)You can contrast outcomes between a pair of cases that form a puzzle.
B)You can understand why your case is different from others.
C)You can provide vivid examples of the phenomenon you are interested in studying.
D)You already have background information about the setting.

Question 31

________ sampling allows researchers to oversample groups so that researchers have more data on those groups than they would with simple random sampling.

A)Systematic
B)Stratified
C)Convenience
D)Cluster

Question 32

________ research refers to research in which social scientists study a large number of cases,but only have a modest amount of information about each case.

A)Case-oriented
B)Deviant case
C)Typical case
D)Variable-oriented

Question 33

A researcher is interested in investigating the impact parental leave policies have on parental health and well-being.He decides to focus on one industry and interviews public elementary school teachers who live in Sweden and the United States.What is the key difference in the researcher's study?

A)health of the participants
B)well-being of the participants
C)location of the participants
D)job of the participants

Question 34

In ________ sampling,cases are deliberately selected on the basis of features that distinguish them from other cases.

A)cluster
B)convenience
C)purposive
D)stratified

Question 35

If a poll oversampled teenagers at three times their proportion in the U.S population,each teenager in the sample would only have ________ the weight of other respondents when researchers calculate population estimates.

A)one-fourth
B)one-third
C)one-half
D)two-thirds

Question 36

This figure depicts three different ways to draw a probability sample of 12 from six-person groups.Which type of sampling is illustrated from top to bottom of the figure?

A)Cluster Sampling;Stratified Sampling;Simple Random Sampling
B)Cluster Sampling;Simple Random Sampling;Stratified Sampling
C)Stratified Sampling;Cluster Sampling;Simple Random Sampling
D)Simple Random Sampling;Cluster Sampling;Stratified Sampling

Question 37

When should weighting be used to create accurate population estimates?

A)in a convenience sample
B)in a simple random sample
C)in a systematic sample
D)in a stratified sample

Question 38

How do researchers know if a project has reached saturation?

A)New materials reinforce what the researcher already knows.
B)New materials yield new insights.
C)Key informants identify new informants to interview.
D)Their intuition suggests interesting insight can be gained.

Question 39

A(n)________ case is one that does not fit a usual pattern or common understanding of how the world works.

A)deviant
B)extreme
C)random
D)typical

Question 40

Dr.Stephens has interviewed Betty five times over the course of his fieldwork studying heroin users in Appalachia.Betty has had strong insights that have helped him further develop his project.What role has Betty served for Dr.Stephens?

A)deviant case
B)key informant
C)random informant
D)typical case

Question 41

Propose a study for which systematic sampling is a better choice than simple random sampling.Justify your choice for why it is a better sampling method for your topic.

Question 42

Define a snowball sample,and then give three examples of populations from which you would recommend using snowball samples to gather data.Explain why you chose those populations.

Question 43

Use an example to illustrate the difference between a typical case and a deviant case.

Question 44

List and describe two reasons why it may be more effective to test hypotheses in nonrepresentative samples than representative samples.

Question 45

If you wanted to study parenting in the United States,would you conduct variable-oriented or case-oriented research? Choose one,and justify it as the superior approach for this topic.

Question 46

Compare and contrast cluster sampling and stratified sampling.Offer two points of comparison and two points of contrast.

Question 47

You are interested in studying students' political participation on your campus.Propose how you could collect data using a probability sample and a nonprobability sample.Then,evaluate which sampling design will better mirror your population.Justify your choice.

Question 48

What is the best sampling strategy?

A)using past experience and intuition to select cases
B)It depends upon the type of study being conducted.
C)using clustering or stratification as opposed to simple random sampling
D)making sure that you have a representative sample of the population