Activity 6.6:

Designing a Sampling Plan

In this activity, you will work with a partner to develop a sampling plan.

Suppose that you would like to select a sample of 50 students at your school to learn something about how many hours per week, on average, students in your program spend engaged in studying.

1. Discuss with your partner whether you think it would be easy or difficult to obtain a simple random sample of students and to obtain the desired information from all students selected for the sample. Summarize your discussion by writing a few sentences (to read to the class) explaining why you think it would be easy or difficult.
2. With your partner, decide how you might go about selecting a sample of 50 students from your school that, although it truly may not be a simple random sample, could be reasonably considered representative of the population of interest. briefely describe of your sampling plan and be sure to point out the aspects of the plan that you think make it reasonable to argue that it will be representative.
3. Explain your plan to another pair of students in the class. Ask them to critique the plan, pointing out any potential flaws they see in it. briefely summarize of the comments you received. Now reverse roles and provide a critique of their sampling plan.
4. Based on the feedback you just received, would you modify your original sampling plan? If not, explain why this is not necessary. If so, describe how the plan would be modified.