Question

Researchers are trying to estimate the mean student loan amount owed by students in a large university and the proportion of all students who carry a student loan. A group of 50 students is randomly selected from each of the 200 majors within the university. The responses of these students showed that 30% held a student loan and the mean debt was $18450.

(a）Fill in each of the blanks with these possible terms: population, parameter, sample, statistics, sample size, sample count, observational study, experiment, bias, sampling variability, sampling distribution

i. This study is an example of a(n) .

ii. All students in the unversity form the .

iii. The students who participated in the study form the .

iv. The number 10000 is called the .

v. The number, 30%, is called a .

vi. The number, 18450, is called a .

(b) Which sampling technique was used? A. convenience B. voluntary response C. stratified D. multi-stage E. simple random F. none of the above

Answer 1

I) This study is an example of Observation study (Since the students are just observed no experiment is done on them, their information is just collected)

ii) All students in the university form the population. (A population is the total people being considered in a study for who we try to find the hypothesis say whether the population mean is greater than a particular value, based on the population we select a suitable random sample)

iii) The students who participated in the study form the sample.

iv) The number 10000 is called sample size (50 students selected from 200 majors, so sample size= 50*200= 10000)

v) The number 30% is a parameter.

vi) The number, 18450 is the sample mean debt found from the sample so it's a statistic

b) It's mentioned that group of students is randomly selected, so simple random sampling technique has been used. So option E is correct.