1. A large university campus has 18,000 students.

The President of the Students’ Association wants

to conduct a survey of the students to determine their views on an increase in the Student Activity
Centre Fee. She would like to acquire information about all the students but would also like to
compare the responses of the School of Business, the Faculty of Science & Technology; the Faculty
of Law, the Faculty of Medical Sciences, the Faculty of Social Sciences, The Faculty of Humanities
and Education, The Faculty of Agriculture and Food Sciences, and The Faculty of Engineering.

a. Design a sampling plan that accomplishes these goals. Be sure to outline the steps
involved in undertaking such a statistical investigation.
b. Discuss the limitations that may arise in conducting such an exercise.

A sampling plan that would be appropriate to conduct a survey of the students to determine their views
on an increase in the Student Activity Centre Fee would be Stratified Sampling. With Stratified Sampling,
information as well as the ability to compare the responses of the School of Business, the Faculty of
Science & Technology; the Faculty of Law, the Faculty of Medical Sciences, the Faculty of Social Sciences,
The Faculty of Humanities and Education, The Faculty of Agriculture and Food Sciences, and The Faculty
of Engineering would also be available. Stratified Sampling is a sampling method that can be defined as
dividing the population into separate groups called strata then a simple random sample is conducted
and drawn from each group.

The steps that would be taken in this process involved dividing the population (18000 students) into
strata (Their respective Faculties). When this step is completed, a census would be conducted.

The reason a census would be conducted is because The President of the Students’ Association wants to
acquire information about ALL the students as well as to compare them from their respective faculties. If
a simple random sampling were to be used, all elements would not be involved thus it would not meet
the criteria of the President of the student Association.

An interview can be conducted or a survey can also be used for information gathering. In this case a
survey would be used as a method to collect information. A survey was chosen because it would be less
time consuming when gathering information on the entire population compared to an interview. The
surveys would then be distributed to each strata (faculty) and a note should be taken as to who received
the surveys to ensure that all of the population receives it. After a certain time period has passed the
surveys would then be collected and the information recorded.

Limitations involved would

Timely.

Costly.

The availability of each element in the population.