This illustrates my objection to most multiple choice questions in assessment. (They are all right in questionnaires....) One of the problems is that they rely on a lot of unstated assumptions, which may or may not be known to the students.
I would GUESS (HOPE?) that the answer looked for is (4). (1) has a built in bias, particularly as many people who go to the ciniema would go there in the efgening, so you would expect the results to be biased against frequent movie-going. (2) will have a low response rate (unless some very good incentive to reply is provided - or a disincentive against not replying!) and the electoral list is not a particularly good surrogate population. It will also have a bias against frequent movie-going because it will not include those under 18 (assuming a voting age of 18!) and this group does a lot of movie-going! (3) has an obvious bias so is not worth considering at all. Assuming that the populatin census is recent, and that a 'register' means something like a recent list of the population (presumably obtained from a census!) the implication appears to be that this is a survey based on something very close to the real population. Hence (4). Cost consideration won't affect the reliability of the results, but will of course affect your decision as to which type of survey to run - you may elect a less reliable but cheaper or quicker design. Sorry if I have answered a homework question! Alan George wrote: > > from a past exam, I have the following question: > > Which type of sample survey would provide the most reliable data on the > frequency of cinema-going of the population? > > only one of 1,2,3,4 is "correct": > > 1) A house to house survey in the evening > 2) A postal survey based on the electoral list > 3) Interviewing outside the cinema > 4) A household survey based on a population census or register > > ------- > I can assume cost of the survey is not an issue right? then 2 is out, as > 1 is better than 2 for reliability. > 3 is out of the question as it does not cover the general population. > > So I think either 1 or 4 must be correct. > But 4 is similar to 1, so what is the difference between a census and a > Register??? and between a Register and a (i.e. electoral) List??? > BTW a household survey is also presumably done from house to house, and > not via post ? > > Thanks for your help. particularly, Dr. Paul Gardner for his past help > in a similar question > on finite sampling. > > George > > -for personal reply please remove SPAMLESS from my email address. > > . > . > ================================================================= > Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the > problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: > . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . > ================================================================= -- Alan McLean ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics Monash University, Caulfield Campus, Melbourne Tel: +61 03 9903 2102 Fax: +61 03 9903 2007 . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . =================================================================
