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Review Questions / Exercises

1. You hypothesize that students in fraternities/sororities on your campus are more extroverted (on an
introversion/extroversion scale) than other students. To answer your research question, you need to

obtain a sample of “Greek” students and a sample of “independent” students. For each of these two
populations of students, how would you obtain simple random samples using the four steps described
in this chapter?

2. For the hypothesis in question 1, describe how you would obtain samples using stratified random
sampling, with stratification based on the sex of the student. Assume that 60% of the Greeks are

women.
3. For the hypothesis in question 1, describe how you would obtain samples using convenience
sampling.

4. For the hypothesis in question 1, describe how you would obtain samples using quota sampling based
on the sex of the student. Again, assume that 60% of the Greeks are women.
5. For the hypothesis in question 1, describe a poor method of sampling that you believe would result in

systematic sampling error and thus bias the research findings. Explain why you believe the sample
would be biased.
6. Go to an Internet site that has an online poll. (If you are not familiar with such a site, simply conduct

a search using the keywords “online poll” or “online survey” and select one of the sites.) Participate
in the survey, and view the current results. Describe the nature of the survey and the current results.

What method of sampling was used? What characteristics do you believe the members of the sample
possess? Do you believe that these characteristics influence the poll results? Would the results be
different if the general population of U.S. adults were polled?