Chapter

2 Review – Collecting Data

MDM4U
Jensen

Section 2.2 Characteristics of Data

1) Write the word or phrase that is being described

a) __________________________: the entire group of individuals that a study aims to gather information about

b) __________________________: part of a population that is examined to gather information

c) _________________________: an attempt to gather information about every individual member of the
population

d) __________________________: a study that considers individuals from different groups at the same time

e) __________________________: a study that considers individuals over a 
 long period of time.

f) ________________________________________: A variable that takes numerical values for which it makes sense to
find an average.

g) _________________________________________: A variable that places an individual into one of several groups or
categories

h) ________________________________________: A quantitative variable that can have an infinite number of values
in a given interval. Measurable with all real numbers.

i) ________________________________________: A quantitative variable that can take on only a finite number of
values within a given range.

2) Identify each of the following variables as qualitative or quantitative. For each quantitative variable,
identify whether it is continuous or discrete.

a) decibels of loudness

b) eye colour

c) carpet texture

d) number of candies

e) thickness of a book

f) volume of a drink

g) length of a pendulum

h) time of an airplane’s descent

i) measure on the Richter scale
3) For each observational study described, outline what the population of the study was, what the sample
was, the main variables involved (including what type of variables they are), and whether a cross-
sectional or longitudinal study was done.

a) A science teacher was interested to find the relationship between homework completion and test
performance for grade 10 science students. The teacher chose two grade 10 science students from his
class to be part of the study. The teacher checked their homework everyday of the semester and tracked
how changes in amount of homework completed affected test performance for each unit.



b) A market researcher wanted to know if teenage males or females were more likely to smoke. She
decided to go to a local high school and ask all of the students if they smoked or not.






Section 2.3 Sampling Principles

4) Which type of sampling method is being described?

a) _________________________________________________: divide the population into groups; randomly select a few of
those groups and then sample all members from the selected groups.

b) _________________________________________________: randomly choose some starting point; then select every
𝑛"# element in the population, where 𝑛 is the sampling interval.

c) _________________________________________________: each member of the population is equally likely to be
chosen and the members of the sample are chosen independently of one other

d) _________________________________________________: the population is organized into groups, a simple random
sample of groups is chosen, and then a simple random sample of people within the chosen groups is
taken.

e) _________________________________________________: choosing individuals from the population who are easy to
reach

f) _________________________________________________: the population is 
 divided into groups. A simple random
sample of the members of each group is 
 then taken. The size of the sample for each group is

 proportionate to the group's size

g) _________________________________________________: a sample that consists of people who choose themselves by
responding to a general invitation.





5) Identify the type of random sampling in each of the following scenarios.

a) 80 students are taking an AP stats course and the teacher wants to randomly pick out a sample of 10
students to try out a practice exam. She numbers the students 1 through 80 and uses the random number
generator function on her calculator to determine which 10 students will write the practice exam.



b) The Ontario government randomly selects five high schools in Ontario and surveys each teacher in
those five schools.



c) Every fiftieth family in the Unionville telephone book is surveyed by phone.



d) To analyze the quality of Canada’s health care system, 10% of the hospitals from each province are
randomly selected to participate in a study.



e) In order to determine how much sleep typical high school students get, a student surveyed the first
100 students to arrive at school on a particular morning.



f) A magazine posed the question “should drivers be banned using all cell phones?” Readers were
encouraged to vote online at the magazines website.



g) There are 30 NBA basketball teams. Each NBA basketball team has 12 players on its roster. To find out
if the players think the season is too long, the commissioner decides to randomly select 5 teams, and then
randomly select two players from each of those teams to interview.




6) A standard deck of 52 cards has four suits(hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades), each with 13 cards. If
you wanted a random sample of 25% of these cards, describe in detail how you could do this using each
of the following methods:

a) simple random sampling

b) systematic random sampling

c) cluster random sampling

7) From a list of 100 grade 12 students numbered 00 to 99, a sample of ten is taken. For each example
below, identify what sampling method was used. Justify your choices.

a) 7, 17, 27, 37, 47, 57, 67, 77, 87, 97

b) 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39

c) 25, 21, 29, 28, 20, 52, 54, 50, 57, 51

d) 5, 14, 28, 38, 41, 55, 68, 70, 84, 92




8) In your school you have the following demographics: Number of
Grade
Students
a) Explain how you could obtain a simple random sample of 20% of
9 120
the students
200
10
130
11
190
12
640
Total
b) Explain how you could obtain a stratified random sample by grade
of 20% of the students












c) Explain how you could obtain a systematic random sample of 20% of the students.









Section 2.4 – Survey Design and Bias

9) On the topic of school, create one example for each of the following types of questions:

a. Open question b. Rating question

c. Ranking question d. Checklist question

10) Determine whether each example is a(n): information question, checklist question, ranking question,
or rating question.

a) Please provide the following information: Name:_____________________ Age: _________





b) Rank each of the following in the order of importance, where 1 is most important and 6 is
least important. It is important to me that my friends are:

________ honest, ________ trustworthy, ________ friendly, ________ sharing, ________ funny, ________ kind.




c) Which of the following types of music do you enjoy? (Circle as many as apply.)

☐ Classic ☐ Rock ☐ Jazz ☐ Hip-hop ☐ Reggae ☐ Heavy metal ☐ Alternative ☐ Country

d) Rate your preference for the following foods (1 means “not at all”, 10 means “very much)

_______Ice cream _______pie _______lasagna _______pizza

_______hot dogs _______ french fries _______Greek salad _______ soup





11) Identify what type of bias is being indicated.

a) _________________________________: Refers to anything in the survey design that influences the responses.
This includes wording of questions, and unwillingness of respondent to reveal personal facts.

b) _________________________________: When the chosen sample does not accurately represent the population

c) _________________________________: When one type of respondent is overrepresented because groupings of
different sizes are polled equally instead of proportionately

d) _________________________________: Occurs when an individual chosen for the sample can’t be contacted or
refuses to participate



12) Identify the type(s) of bias that may result from each of the following data collection methods.

a) You wish to find out how many hours teenagers spend playing video games on an average school night,
so you randomly survey five students from each block A class.


b) You wish to determine how many students will come to an upcoming dance and so you send a survey
to all Grade 9 classes.


c) Teachers of a school want to gather data on how many students cheat during tests so they conduct one
on one interviews with each of their students.


d) The cafeteria hand out surveys during lunch to students to gather information about what types of
meals students would like to have. They ask that students complete the surveys during lunch and drop
them before class.


e) You are interested in determining how many hours of television teenagers in your school watch per
week, so you post a poll on EDSBY and ask for volunteers to fill it out.




13) Consider each of the following questions. Use the criteria for what to avoid in good questions.
Identify any criteria (there may be more than one) which are not met and rewrite the question to
improve it.

a) On a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being the highest), evaluate the talent level of Sidney Crosby, who was voted by
the NHLPA to be the most valuable player in the NHL multiple times.

Criteria not met:


Rewrite:



b) From the list below, indicate which goaltenders you wouldn’t choose for your fantasy hockey team.

Roberto Luongo Marc-Andre Fleury James Reimer Martin Brodeur Steve Mason

Jimmy Howard Jonathan Bernier Carey Price Devan Dubnyk Craig Anderson


Criteria not met:

Rewrite:


Section 2.5 Experiment Design

14) Does reducing screen brightness increase battery life in laptop computers? To find out, researchers
obtained 30 new laptops of the same brand. They chose 15 of the computers at random and adjusted
their screens to the brightest setting. The other 15 laptop screens were left at the default setting –
moderate brightness. Researchers then measured how long each machine’s battery lasted. Was this an
observational study or an experiment?




15) Does eating dinner with their families improve students’ academic performance? According to an
ABC News article, “Teenagers who eat with their families at least five times a week are more likely to get
better grades in school. This finding was based on a sample survey conducted by researchers at Columbia
University. Was this an observational study or an experiment?





16) A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (March 11, 2010) compared two
medicines to treat head lice: an oral medication called ivermectin and a topical lotion containing
malathion. Researchers studied 376 households in areas around the world. Of the 185 households
randomly assigned to ivermectin, 171 were free from head lice after 2 weeks compared with only 151 of
the 191 households randomly assigned to malathion.

a) Identify the experimental units


b) What are the explanatory and response variables




c) What are the treatments used




17) What are the four principles of experimental design?

a) ___________________________________: Use a design that compares two or more treatments

b) ___________________________________: Use chance to assign experimental units to different treatments.

c) ___________________________________: Keep other variables (besides the ones you are testing) that might
affect the response of the subject the same for all groups.

d) ___________________________________: Use enough experimental units in each group so that any differences in
the effects of the treatments can be distinguished from chance differences between groups

18) Researchers in Canada performed an experiment with university students to examine the effects of
in-class laptop use on student learning. All participants in the study were first year undergraduate
students enrolled in in the business administration program. They were asked to attend a university-
style lecture and take notes with their laptops. Half of the participants were assigned to complete other
non-lecture related online tasks during the lecture. These tasks were meant to imitate typical student
Web browsing during classes. The remaining students simply took notes with their laptops. To assign the
treatments, the researchers printed 40 papers with instructions (20 with multitasking and 20 without),
shuffled them, and handed them out at random to students in the classroom. At the end of the lecture, all
participants took a comprehension test to measure how much they learned from it. The results: students
who were assigned to multitask did significantly worse (11%) than students who were not assigned to
multitask.

Explain how each of the four principles of experimental design was used in the multitasking study.












19) Nurse practitioners are nurses with advanced qualifications who often act much like primary care
physicians. Are they as effective as doctors at treating patients with chronic conditions? An experiment
was conducted with 1316 patients who had been diagnosed with asthma, diabetes, or high blood
pressure. Within each condition, patients were randomly assigned to either a doctor or a nurse
practitioner. The response variables included measures of the patients’ health and of their satisfaction
with their medical care after 6 months.

a) Which are the blocks in this experiment: the different diagnoses (asthma, and so on) or the type of care
(nurse or doctor)?




b) Explain why a randomized block design is preferable to a completely randomized design here.












20) Twenty overweight females have agreed to participate in a study of the effectiveness of four weight-
loss treatments: A, B, C, and D. The researcher first calculates how overweight each subject is by
comparing the subject’s actual weight with her “ideal” weight. The subjects and their excess weights in
pounds are as follows:

Birnbaum 35 Hernandez 25 Moses 25 Smith 29
Brown 34 Jackson 33 Nevesky 39 Stall 33
Bunk 30 Kendall 28 Obrach 30 Tran 35
Cruz 34 Loren 32 Rodriguez 30 Wilansky 42
Deng 24 Mann 28 Santiago 27 Williams 22

The response variable is the weight lost after 8 weeks of treatment. Previous studies have shown that the
effects of a diet may vary based on a subject’s initial weight.

a) Explain why a randomized block design would be better than a completely randomized design in this
setting.



b) Should researchers form blocks of size 4 based on subjects’ last names in alphabetical order or by how
overweight the subjects are? Explain.




c) Explain how you could carry out the random assignment required by your design. Explain your
method clearly.







21) In an interesting experiment, researchers examined the effect of ultrasound on birth weight.
Pregnant women participating in the study were randomly assigned to one of two groups. The first group
of women received an ultrasound; the second group did not. When the subjects’ babies were born, their
birth weights were recorded. The women who received the ultrasounds had heavier babies.

a) Did the experimental design take the placebo effect into account? Why is this important?






b) Was the experiment double-blind? Why is this important?




c) Based on your answers to a) and b), describe an improved design for this experiment.