Question

Sampling Worksheet

You are interested in finding out more about the GPA of students who have majored in psychology who then go on to graduate school.  You are interested in knowing if your GPA is within the accepted students range.  

1.What is the population of interest?

2. How would you do your sampling?

Be specific regarding the type of sampling procedure you would use

Is this procedure considered a probability or non-probability sample?

Choose another method that would be the opposite (probability or non-probability).

3. What measure(s) would you use to figure out the average GPA?

4. How would you figure out what size sample you need to get statistical significance?

5. To what type of sampling distribution would you compare your results?

6. How would you increase your generalizability to all students who enter graduate study in psychology?

Answer 1

1. The population of interest are students who have majored in Psychology and are interested in graduate school.
2. For this study, I will recruit participants from the Psychology department in a public university in my city. This is the convenience sampling method, which is a non-probability sampling method.
The reverse would be the random sampling method, for which I would need to compile a list of all students currently studying Psychology in the state and then choose the participants on a random basis.
3. I will use the mean to figure our the average GPA. However if the data is skewed, I will use the median.
4. For this, I would keep in mind the confidence level and the margin of error that I want my study to have. From these values, I can calculate the desired sample size.
Please post the other questions separately as we are supposed to answer just one question or four sub parts of the same question.