1.2 Data, sampling, and variation in data and sampling  (Page 11/56)

References

Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. http://www.well-beingindex.com/default.asp (accessed May 1, 2013).

Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. http://www.well-beingindex.com/methodology.asp (accessed May 1, 2013).

Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. http://www.gallup.com/poll/146822/gallup-healthways-index-questions.aspx (accessed May 1, 2013).

Data from http://www.bookofodds.com/Relationships-Society/Articles/A0374-How-George-Gallup-Picked-the-President

Dominic Lusinchi, “’President’ Landon and the 1936 Literary Digest Poll: Were Automobile and Telephone Owners to Blame?” Social Science History 36, no. 1: 23-54 (2012), http://ssh.dukejournals.org/content/36/1/23.abstract (accessed May 1, 2013).

“The Literary Digest Poll,” Virtual Laboratories in Probability and Statistics http://www.math.uah.edu/stat/data/LiteraryDigest.html (accessed May 1, 2013).

“Gallup Presidential Election Trial-Heat Trends, 1936–2008,” Gallup Politics http://www.gallup.com/poll/110548/gallup-presidential-election-trialheat-trends-19362004.aspx#4 (accessed May 1, 2013).

The Data and Story Library, http://lib.stat.cmu.edu/DASL/Datafiles/USCrime.html (accessed May 1, 2013).

LBCC Distance Learning (DL) program data in 2010-2011, http://de.lbcc.edu/reports/2010-11/future/highlights.html#focus (accessed May 1, 2013).

Data from San Jose Mercury News

Chapter review

Data are individual items of information that come from a population or sample. Data may be classified as qualitative, quantitative continuous, or quantitative discrete.

Because it is not practical to measure the entire population in a study, researchers use samples to represent the population. A random sample is a representative group from the population chosen by using a method that gives each individual in the population an equal chance of being included in the sample. Random sampling methods include simple random sampling, stratified sampling, cluster sampling, and systematic sampling. Convenience sampling is a nonrandom method of choosing a sample that often produces biased data.

Samples that contain different individuals result in different data. This is true even when the samples are well-chosen and representative of the population. When properly selected, larger samples model the population more closely than smaller samples. There are many different potential problems that can affect the reliability of a sample. Statistical data needs to be critically analyzed, not simply accepted.

Practice

Use the following information to answer the next four exercises: A study was done to determine the age, number of times per week, and the duration (amount of time) of residents using a local park in San Antonio, Texas. The first house in the neighborhood around the park was selected randomly, and then the resident of every eighth house in the neighborhood around the park was interviewed.