Question

A pollster wishing to draw inferences about the population of American adults decides to draw its sample by randomly dialing landlines across the country. Given that many people only have a cell phone and that people who are wealthier and older are more likely to keep a landline, what could this strategy produce

Answer 1

Biased sample

Step-by-step explanation:

In statistics, a biased sample refers to a non-random sample of the population. This means that in a biased sample all the individuals are not equally likely to be selected to be part of the sample. This results in groups from the population not being represented in the sample.

Thus, when we have a biased sample, the results of the study will likely be biased if this error in sampling is not taken into account.

In this example, the pollster RANDOMLY dials landlines across the country. However, not all people in the country have landlines (many people have only cellphones and the older wealthier people are more likely to have a landline). Therefore, not all the people from the country have the same probability of being selected for this poll and people who don't have landlines (probably younger people or not so wealthy people) will not be represented in the sample.

Thus, this would be an example of a biased sample.