Exam 6: Sampling

Multistage cluster sampling

Under which of the following conditions would nonprobability sampling be most appropriate?

Ideally, the sampling frame should be identical to the target population.

To measure women's leadership in local government, a researcher obtains a list of all cities in the U.S., randomly selects 100 cities, and identifies whether the mayor of each selected city is a man or woman in the year 2017. What is the researcher's sampling frame?

For which of the following populations would some form of referral sampling (network sampling or snowball sampling) be appropriate?

Snowball sampling is often used in studies of deviant behavior.

Which of the following statements is false regarding sampling error?

Purposive sampling should be used when very little is known about the population.

When properly executed, which of the following probability sampling designs requires the fewest cases for a given level of sample accuracy?

Knowledge of the sampling distribution of a statistic enables researchers to

The general purpose of multistage cluster sampling is to reduce the costs of data collection.

The two main reasons for using stratified sampling are to __________ and to __________.

What are the two most important considerations in determining an appropriate sample size?

Which of the following sampling designs controls for the biased selection of respondents?

Suppose you want to draw a probability sample of all U.S. intercollegiate athletes who are competing during the current academic year. Describe how you might use each of the basic probability sampling designs: simple random, stratified random, and multistage cluster. Then indicate which sampling design you think is best to use and why.

Representativeness is the best measure of the overall quality of a sample.

A primary reason for the Literary Digest poll's erroneous forecast that Landon would win the 1936 presidential election was

Following a senatorial election in California, a Los Angeles Times article pointed out that the polls are not as reliable as media portrayals would suggest. The author gave several examples of seemingly contradictory poll results in pre-election surveys; for example, one poll had one candidate ahead by 10 points and another poll had her trailing by 2. Suppose someone asks you to explain how this could occur. Assuming that all the polls were telephone surveys that used probability sampling, identify and briefly describe three possible sources of sampling error in the polls.

Nonprobability sampling generally is more appropriate in the early than in the late stages of research.

For a survey of senior citizens, a copy of the annual city census is obtained, and 30,000 residents sixty-five years of age and older are identified. A total of 400 seniors is selected, of whom 250 are interviewed. There are __________ senior citizens in the sampling frame.