Question 7.37

image 7. Your college wants to gather student opinion about a proposed student fee increase. It isn’t practical to contact all students.

  1. Give an example of a way to choose a sample of students that is poor practice because it depends on voluntary response.
  2. Give an example of a bad way to choose a sample that doesn’t use voluntary response.

7.

Sample response: (a) Print a coupon in the campus newspaper asking students to check their opinion, cut out the coupon, and mail it in.

(b) Ask all the students in a large sociology course to record their opinion before giving an exam in the course. (This is a convenience sample.)