Textbook: Research Methods in Psychology by Beth Morling
Chapter 7 Sampling: Estimating the Frequency of Behaviors and Beliefs
Imagine you are planning to estimate the price of the average book at your college bookstore. The bookstore carries 13,000 titles, but you plan to sample only 200 books. You will select a sample of 200 books, record the price of each book, and use the average of the 200 books to estimate the average price of the 13,000 titles in the bookstore. Assume that the bookstore can give you access to a database that lists all 13,000 titles that it carries. Based on this information, answer the following questions related to the content in Chapter Seven.of the textbook.
1. What is the sample in this study, and what is the population of the interest?
2. How might you collect a simple random sample of books?
3. Choose one of the following options and discuss how you would collect that type of sample (systematic random sample, cluster sample, multistage sample, or quota sample).
4. Discuss one possible way that you could end up with a biased sample when conducting this study (hint: be sure to discuss how the sample could be gathered and the type of bias that could occur).
