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Products come off an assembly line at the rate of several hundred per hour. It is desired to sample 10% of them to check whether they meet quality standards. Describe a sampling method that would be appropriate in this situation. Explain your reasoning.

User OneNerd
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1 Answer

26 votes
26 votes

Answer:

10% of the hundreds of products will be sampled, so the most effective sample method would be systematic sampling, checking every 10th product, which would avoid sources of bias such as missing a region of production where there could be some problems.

Explanation:

Samples may be classified as:

Convenient: Sample drawn from a conveniently available pool.

Random: Basically, put all the options into a hat and drawn some of them.

Systematic: Every kth element is taken. For example, you want to survey something on the street, you interview every 5th person, for example.

Cluster: Divides population into groups, called clusters, and each element in the cluster is surveyed.

Stratified: Also divides the population into groups. However, then only some elements of the group are surveyed.

In this case:

10% of the hundreds of products will be sampled, so the most effective sample method would be systematic sampling, checking every 10th product, which would avoid sources of bias such as missing a region of production where there could be some problems.

User ShadowChaser
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