Dr. Neal, Spring 2009
MATH 203 Survey Proposal
Survey Question 1: On the Mean of a Measurement
1. Think of a measurement
X
that you would like to analyze. For example, the number
of hours that a typical student sleeps per weeknight, or the number of jobs that a person
has had.
2. Specify the population Ω that you wish to target for your survey, for example,
“Undergraduates at WKU” or “Adults living in Bowling Green”
3. Break your population down into two disjoint sub-populations Ω
1
and Ω
2
, for
example, Ω
1
= female and Ω
2
= male, or Ω
1
= married and Ω
2
= single.
Survey Question 2: Population Proportion
Using the same population and sub-populations as in Survey Question 1,
4. Think of a “Yes/No” question that has only two responses. For example, “Do you
favor capital punishment?” or “Are you a smoker or non-smoker?” State your
question and which response you want to measure. This will be called a favorable
response.
When you collect your responses, you should have at least 30 from each
subpopulation. (Ideally, the number asked in each sub-population should be in the
same proportion to the actual number of people in the sub-population.)
Data for your responses can be easily sorted:
Response In Pop ? 1 2 Meas. X Yes Not Yes
Person 1 √ √ 20 √
Person 2 √√14 √
Person 3 √ √ 12 √
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
≥ 60 √ √ 15 √
A
= “Yes”
′ A
= “Not Yes”
B
= Ω
1
total in Ω
1
′ B
= Ω
2
total in Ω
2
Total “Yes” Total “Not Yes” Total
