Question

One of your classmates is working on an assignment for her statistics class. She created an online survey to collect student opinions about the college class schedule. She only has time before her engineering class to distribute the link to the survey. So she stands outside the engineering building just before class each day and randomly selects students as they enter the building. She hands each selected student a link to the survey and asks the student to go online and answer the questions. Over several months, she repeats the process until 200 students go online and take the survey.

Which of the following statements accurately describes your classmate’s survey? Check all that apply.
1. The sample is not representative of the population.
2. The sample is biased.
3. The sample is large, so the results of the survey will be reliable.
4. The survey can be used to draw conclusions about the population.

Answer 1

1 and 2

Explanation:

The sample is not a representation of the population, the population of students in colleges are high thus at least 10% of the population should be surveyed, this gives a better representation of the entire population.

The survey will also be biased as she stands outside the engineering building only and other students not belongings to this faculty might not be able to participate, thus the responses she will get will tend towards the favourable direction for the engineering students and will not reflects the entire students including non engineering students opinions on their college class schedule.