Question

1. A researcher wants to create a random sample of students at Smart U. A friend suggests that the researcher walk across campus and approach every third person she encounters. Is this a random sample? If not, what type of sample is it? Can you develop a procedure to create a random sample?

2. Which correlation is stronger: 0.55 or -0.87?

3. A researcher wishes to learn whether college students use more slang when speaking with a person their own age than when speaking with an older person. Design a within-subjects experiment to test this hypothesis.

Answer 1

1. This is not an example of a random sample, rather it represents convince sampling method as data collection is driven according to the researcher’s convenience. To create a truly random sample, the researcher can collaborate with the university administrator to obtain a list of all the students studying in the university. From this list, students can be allotted digits and then chosen based on their numbers.

2. -0.87 represents a stronger correlation. The closer the value is to 0, the weaker is the relationship.

3. For this experiment, there can be two experiment confederates - one belonging to the participants age group and one belonging to an older age group. With a predetermined topic guide, they can record the conversation they hold with the participants. They participants can first interact with their own age confederate, followed by the older confederate. The amount of slangs used in each type of conversation can be counted and then compared for finding any significant differences.