A team of PSU researchers would like to determine if there is a difference in the perceived quality of college food based on gender. Given that the on-campus student population is too large to include every student, the researchers want to obtain a sample of 200 students to question.

a. Describe how they could use a simple random sampling method to obtain a sample of 200 students.

b. Describe how they could use a convenience sampling method to obtain a sample of 200 students.

c. Which sampling method would you recommend that the researchers use? Explain why.

d. What are the explanatory and response variables in this study?

a) Steps to select a simple random sample of 200 students.

i. Define the population: The population of our study is the on-campus students, N.

ii. Determine the sample size: We need to select n=200n=200 samples.

iii. Label the students: Label the students on the campus from 1 to N.

iv. Use the random number table or random number generator to select samples: Start from any line in the random number table and select 200 values in the range of 1 to N. Discard repetitive values.

b) In order to select a convenience sample of 200 students, the researcher can use the central library database to gather the names of the first 200 students who had rented at least one book in the current month.

c) simple random sampling is the simplest probability sampling technique where each case in the population has an equal chance of being selected in the sample. Thus the sample is highly representative of the population.

On the other hand, convenience sampling is a nonprobability sampling technique where samples selected do not represent the population.

Therefore researchers should use simple random sampling.

d) The response variable is the perceived quality of college food, and the explanatory variable is the gender.