Question

A tree enthusiast is interested in estimating the typical length of oak tree leaves. He chooses 30 leaves from the oak tree in his backyard.

a. What is the sample in this situation?
b. What is the population in which the tree enthusiast is interested?
c. Is this a biased sampling strategy? If so, identify a population that we can generalize to, given our sample.

Answer 1

The sample is the 30 leaves chosen from the backyard oak tree. The population of interest is all oak tree leaves. The sampling strategy is biased and to generalize, leaves from multiple oak trees should be collected.

Step-by-step explanation:

a. The sample in this situation is the 30 leaves that the tree enthusiast chooses from the oak tree in his backyard.

b. The population in which the tree enthusiast is interested is all the oak tree leaves, not just the ones in his backyard.

c. This sampling strategy is biased because it only includes leaves from the oak tree in the backyard, which may not be representative of all oak tree leaves. To generalize to a larger population, the tree enthusiast could collect leaves from multiple oak trees in different locations.