Suppose you are interested in whether or not the students at your high school would favor a grading system in which students may receive final grades of Aplus, A, Aminus, Bplus, B, Bminus, Cplus, C, Cminus, and so on. Describe how you might obtain a random sample of 100 students from the entire student population.
One method to obtain a random sample of 100 students from the entire student population at the high school would be to use a systematic random sampling technique.
First, the total number of students in the school would need to be determined. Let's say there are a total of 1000 students.
Next, a random starting point would be selected - for example, select a random student ID number between 1 and 1000.
Then, every 10th student from the randomly selected starting point would be included in the sample. This can be done by counting every 10th student from the starting point until reaching a total of 100 students.
Alternatively, a random number generator could be used to select 100 unique student IDs from the total population of 1000 students.
It is important to ensure that the sample is truly random so that it accurately represents the entire student population at the high school. This will help ensure the findings from the sample can be generalized to the larger population.