Unit 5: Sampling Design - Practice Quiz

1 What is the first step in the sampling design process?

2 What is a sampling frame?

3 What does determining the sample size involve?

4 Why is the sampling unit specified in a sampling design?

5 Which characteristic means that a sample closely reflects its population?

6 A good sample should have which type of sampling error?

7 What does an adequate sample size help improve?

8 Which quality makes a sample practical to study with available resources?

9 What are the two broad types of sampling design?

10 In probability sampling, how are population units selected?

11 Which feature is typical of non-probability sampling?

12 Which sampling design is generally more suitable for statistical generalization?

13 Which technique gives every population member an equal chance of selection?

14 Which sampling technique selects every th unit from an ordered list?

15 In which technique is the population divided into homogeneous subgroups before sampling?

16 Which technique randomly selects entire groups, such as schools or villages?

17 Which technique selects participants because they are easy to reach?

18 Which technique selects participants based on the researcher's expert judgment?

19 Which technique asks existing participants to recommend other participants?

20 Which technique selects participants until predetermined category totals are reached?

21 A researcher wants to study job satisfaction among 2,400 employees working in six departments. Before choosing a sampling technique, what should the researcher do first?

22 A university survey defines its population as all currently enrolled students but uses an outdated hostel list as its sampling frame. Which problem is most likely?

23 A researcher has a fixed budget and requires estimates for both urban and rural households. Which design decision best addresses this requirement?

24 A sample size calculation gives 384 respondents, but a response rate of 80% is expected. Approximately how many people should be contacted?

25 Two samples are drawn from the same population. Sample X closely reflects the population's age and income distribution, while Sample Y mainly includes young, high-income respondents. Which quality does Sample X demonstrate more strongly?

26 A researcher repeatedly draws samples using the same design. The resulting estimates vary only slightly around the population value. Which two qualities are mainly demonstrated?

27 Increasing a simple random sample from 100 to 400 observations, with population variability unchanged, will approximately have what effect on the standard error?

28 A large online poll allows anyone visiting a news website to participate. Why may its large sample still produce poor estimates of public opinion?

29 A national study randomly selects districts, then schools within selected districts, and finally students within selected schools. Which sampling design is being used?

30 A city is divided into 80 neighborhoods. Ten neighborhoods are randomly selected, and every household in those neighborhoods is surveyed. Which design is this?

31 Which situation most strongly favors stratified sampling rather than cluster sampling?

32 A company samples 10% of employees from each department, with the number chosen from each department proportional to its size. What design is used?

33 A population list contains 1,200 names, and a systematic sample of 100 is required. After choosing a random start from 1 to 12, which interval should be used?

34 A factory uses systematic sampling on a production list where every 20th item comes from the same machine. The sampling interval is also 20. What is the main risk?

35 In simple random sampling without replacement, 50 students are selected from 500. What is the probability that any particular student is included?

36 A small occupational group makes up 2% of a population but must be analyzed separately. Which probability approach is most appropriate?

37 A researcher studying an undocumented migrant community asks each participant to refer other eligible participants. Which method is being used?

38 Interviewers must recruit 60 women and 40 men at a shopping center, but they may choose any available individuals within each category. Which method is this?

39 A researcher deliberately selects experienced emergency physicians because they possess specialized knowledge relevant to the study. Which technique is most appropriate?

40 A lecturer surveys students who remain in the classroom after an optional seminar because they are easiest to reach. What is the main limitation of this method?

41 A national study defines its target population as all adults who usually reside in private households. Its sampling frame is an electoral register that excludes nonregistered adults and retains some people who have moved abroad. Which pair of errors is present before any sampled person is contacted?

42 A researcher must estimate a population mean with margin of error at 95% confidence. A pilot study gives . Ignoring finite population correction and nonresponse, what is the smallest required sample size using with ?

43 A probability sample is selected correctly, but only 60% respond. Response propensity depends strongly on age, which is known for every sampled unit, and age also predicts the outcome. Which revision most directly addresses the resulting risk during estimation?

44 A firm wants separate estimates for three rare occupational groups as well as an overall workforce estimate. A simple random sample would include too few members of each rare group. Which design-stage decision best meets both objectives?

45 Two unbiased designs estimate the same population mean. Design A has variance and expected cost ; Design B has variance and expected cost . If quality is judged by minimizing , which design is more efficient?

46 A very large online opt-in sample closely matches population margins for age, sex, and region after weighting. Which conclusion is most defensible?

47 A cluster sample has respondents per cluster and an intracluster correlation of . Under equal cluster sizes, what is the approximate design effect relative to simple random sampling?

48 A sample estimate has a very small reported standard error, but the frame omits 20% of the target population whose outcome values are systematically higher. Which assessment is correct?

49 A researcher randomly selects 30 hospitals, then independently draws a simple random sample of nurses within each selected hospital. How should this design be classified?

50 A population is divided into mutually exclusive income bands, and an independent random sample is taken from every band. Which feature distinguishes this design from cluster sampling?

51 A survey selects villages with probability proportional to population size and then selects exactly 20 households by simple random sampling within each chosen village. Ignoring repeated village selection, when is the household sample approximately self-weighting?

52 Which design is best described as a probability design even though sampled units can have unequal inclusion probabilities?

53 A population has two strata with and , where is per-unit cost. Under optimum allocation with unequal costs, . For total , what allocation is optimal?

54 A systematic sample of every 10th unit is drawn after one random start from a production list arranged in a repeating cycle of exactly 10 machine positions. What is the central design risk?

55 In unequal-probability sampling without replacement, unit has inclusion probability . Which estimator of the population total is design-unbiased under the sampling design?

56 From a finite population of , an SRS without replacement of produces an estimated standard error of when the finite population correction is ignored. What is the corrected standard error using ?

57 Interviewers must fill age-by-sex quotas but may approach anyone they prefer within each quota cell. Why does this remain non-random sampling?

58 A study of an undocumented and socially connected population recruits initial participants purposively and asks each participant to refer others. Which limitation most directly threatens estimation of population prevalence?

59 A qualitative researcher deliberately chooses cases that sharply differ on organizational size, ownership, and region to examine whether a proposed mechanism appears across diverse contexts. Which technique is being used?

60 An opt-in web poll reports that 72% support a policy, with a conventional SRS margin of error of . Which interpretation is methodologically strongest?