Question

Exercises 5–8 refer to the study of an association between which ear is used for cell phone calls and whether the subject is left-handed or right-handed. The study is reported in “Hemispheric Dominance and Cell Phone Use,” by Seidman et al., JAMA Otolaryngology—Head & Neck Surgery, Vol. 139, No. 5. The study began with a survey e-mailed to 5000 people belonging to an otology online group, and 717 surveys were returned. (Otology relates to the ear and hearing.)

5. Sampling Method What type of sampling best describes the way in which the 717 subjects were chosen: simple random sample, systematic sample, convenience sample, stratified sample, cluster sample? Does the method of sampling appear to adversely a¥ect the quality of the results?

Why is this convience sampling and not stratified

Don’t they share the same characteristic they all belong to an otology group?

Answer 1

(1) Type of sampling method used: Convenience sampling:

REASON: Convenience sampling is a non-probability sampling technique where theresearcher just selects the items because of their convenient accessibility and proximity. Here, the researcher does not apply any probability samplingtechniques. He just collects the samples from "otology online group".

(2) Reason why it is not stratified sampling: In stratified sampling, the reasearcher divides the entire population into different subgroups, called strata and then selects the subjects proportionately from the different strata. Here, the researcher has got only one group, " otology online group" and hence, cannot be stratified sampling.