REAL STATISTICS REAL DECISIONS Putting it all together 34 CHAPTER 1 Introduction to Statistics You are a researcher for a professional research firm. Your firm has won a contract to conduct a study for a technology publication. The editors of the publication would like to know their readers’ thoughts on using smartphones for making and receiving payments, for redeeming coupons, and as tickets to events. They would also like to know whether people are interested in using smartphones as digital wallets that store data from their drivers’ licenses, health insurance cards, and other cards. The editors have given you their readership database and 20 questions they would like to ask (two sample questions from a previous study are given at the right). You know that it is too expensive to contact all of the readers, so you need to determine a way to contact a representative sample of the entire readership population. EXERCISES 1. How Would You Do It? (a) What sampling technique would you use to select the sample for the study? Why? (b) Will the technique you chose in part (a) give you a sample that is representative of the population? (c) Describe the method for collecting data. (d) Identify possible flaws or biases in your study. 2. Data Classification (a) What type of data do you expect to collect: qualitative, quantitative, or both? Why? (b) At what levels of measurement do you think the data in the study will be? Why? (c) Will the data collected for the study represent a population or a sample? (d) Will the numerical descriptions of the data be parameters or statistics? 3. How They Did It When Fluent Pulse did a study about the use of mobile payment apps, it used an Internet survey. (a) Describe some possible errors in collecting data by Internet surveys. (b) Compare your method for collecting data in Exercise 1 to this method. (Source: Fluent Pulse) Mobile payment app users: How does your current mobile payment behavior compare to this time last year? Didn’t use last year 25% Same amount 29% More frequently 33% Less frequently 14% (Source: Fluent Pulse) Mobile payment app users: How frequently do you use mobile payment apps? Daily 19% Weekly 23% Monthly 36% Other 23%
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