Question 8.27

8.27 Canadian teens pay to download music.

A survey of 416 Canadian teens aged 12 to 17 years were asked about downloading music from the Internet.9 Of these, 316 reported that they have used a fee-based website for their downloads.

  1. What proportion of the Canadian teens in the sample used a fee-based website to download music?
  2. Find the 95% margin of error for the estimate.
  3. Compute the 95% confidence interval for the population proportion.
  4. Write a short paragraph explaining the meaning of the confidence interval.
  5. Do you prefer to report the sample proportion with the margin of error or the confidence interval? Give reasons for your answer.
  6. Are there any issues with teens reporting their downloading activities accurately? Discuss.

8.27

(a) 0.76. (b) 0.041. (c) (0.719, 0.801). (d) With 95% confidence, the proportion of Canadian teens aged 12 to 17 who use a fee-based website for their music downloads is between 71.9% and 80.1%. (e) Answers will vary. (f) Answers will vary. Teens may not truthfully report their fee-based website usage, especially if they regularly download music illegally.