Question

A college professor wants to survey a sample of students taking her large lecture course. There are about 150 students in the course, and 10 of those students are graduate students. She wants to take a systematic random sample of approximately 30 students. Which of these strategies will accomplish her intended design?

1) Select the first 30 students who arrive on the first day of class.
2) Randomly select 30 students from the entire class.
3) Randomly select 30 students from the graduate student population.
4) Select every 5th student from the entire class starting from a random student.

Answer 1

The professor can use strategy 4 to take a systematic random sample from the large lecture course.

Step-by-step explanation:

The college professor can accomplish her intended design by selecting strategy number 4) Select every 5th student from the entire class starting from a random student.

To do this, she would first assign each student a number from 1 to 150. Then, she would use a random number generator to select a random starting student, and from there, she would select every 5th student until she reaches a sample size of approximately 30.

This strategy ensures that the sample is systematic and random, providing a representative sample of students from the large lecture course.