COMM 291 — Analysis of Business
Data
QUESTION 1
: Question 1 “A sampling of sampling questions”
a) The Human Resources Department of a large university maintains records on its faculty
members. The table displays some of these data.
Payroll Years of Teaching Rating Salary
Number Birth date Faculty Employment (1-5 scale) Classification
1520 02/20/56 Law 25 4.1 IV
3210 05/13/62 Science 17 3.9 III
0342 10/12/69 Business 12 4.5 II
2988 02/27/78 Arts 4 4.3 I
Place an X in the space beside each variable that is best described as Quantitative.
__ Payroll Number __ Birth date __ Faculty
_X_Years of Employment _X_ Teaching Rating __ Salary Classification
*(Scale-point rating also count as Quantitative)
b) Which of the following is (are) based on cross-sectional data?
__A. Company quarterly profits
__B. Percentage of Canadian adults who work full-time __C.
Historical closing stock prices
__D. Yearly student enrolments __E.
Annual costs
Cross-sectional = Measure at ONE TIME POINT
c) Which of the following is (are) time series data?
__A. Number of employees in 2012
__B. This month’s demand for an automotive part
__C. This quarter’s sales of automobiles
__D. Weekly receipts at a clothing boutique
__E. Percentage of employees who are female Measure at
MORE THAN ONE TIME POINT
,d) The administration of a large university wants to study the types of wellness programs that
would interest its employees. They plan to survey a random sample of employees. Under
consideration are several sampling plans. Beside each plan, write the number of the sampling
strategy given in the following list. for each. Choose from among:
1 = Simple Random Sampling
2 = Stratified Random Sampling
3 = Cluster Sampling
4 = Systematic Sampling
_2_ (i) There are five categories of employees (administration, faculty, professional staff,
clerical and maintenance). Randomly select ten individuals from each category. _1_ (ii)
Each employee has an ID number. Randomly select 50 numbers. SRS=Each one have the same
chance of being selected
_3_ (iii) Randomly select a school within the university (e.g., Business School) and survey
all of the individuals (administration, faculty, professional staff, clerical and
maintenance) who work in that school. Each school is a ‘reasonable
representative’of the university
_4_ (iv) The HR Department has an alphabetized list of newly hired employees (hired
within the last five years). After starting the process by randomly selecting an
employee from the list, every fifth name is chosen to be included in the sample.
e) A manufacturer of toys claims that less than 3% of his toys are defective. When 100 toys were
drawn from one production run of 5,000 toys, 5% were found to be defective. For each term
on the left, select the matching answer from the list to the right, and write the number in the
blank.
_5__ Population 1 The 3% value
_3__ Sample 2 The 5% value
_4__ Sampling Frame 3 The 100 toys
_1__ Parameter 4 The 5,000 toys
_2__ Statistic 5 All toys produced
Statistics estimates the parameter
Pop: Sample ; Parameter: Statistics
,: Question 1 “A sole practitioner”
ASW, a regional shoe chain, has recently launched an online store. Sales via the Internet have
been sluggish compared to their brick and mortar stores, and management suspects that its
regular customers have concerns regarding the security of online transactions. To determine if
this is the case, they plan to survey a sample of their regular customers.
a) Suppose that ASW’s regular customers belong to a rewards program and have a
customer rewards ID number. ASW decides to randomly select 100 numbers. This sampling
plan is called:
__A. Simple Random Sampling
__B. Stratified Sampling
__C. Cluster Sampling
__D. Systematic Sampling
__E. Convenience Sampling
Every regular customer has the same chance of being selected for the sample
b) Suppose that ASW has an alphabetized list of regular customers who belong to their
rewards program. After randomly selecting a customer on the list, every 25th customer
from that point on is chosen to be in the sample. This sampling plan is called:
__A. Simple Random Sampling
__B. Stratified Sampling
__C. Cluster Sampling
__D. Systematic Sampling
__E. Convenience Sampling
c) “All regular ASW customers” is known as the ________ of the study.
__A. Parameter
__B. Statistic
__C. Target Population
__D. Sampling Frame
__E. Sample
d) Which of the following is the parameter of interest in the ASW study?
__A. All regular ASW customers
, __B. % of regular ASW customers who have concerns about online security
__C. ASW customers who belong to the rewards program
__D. % of ASW customers who belong to the rewards program but don’t shop online
__E. None of the above
A parameter is numerical characteristic (e.g. Mean, proportion, percentage)
e) One member of the management team at ASW suggests that their survey could be
done online. Customers logging on to the online store would be asked to complete the survey
and offered a coupon as incentive to participate. Which statement is true?
__A. This is a voluntary response sample
__B. This would result in an unbiased random sample
__C. This would result in a biased sample
__D. Both A and B
__E. Both A and C
: Question 1 “First things first”
a) At the beginning of the term we asked all Commerce 291 students to complete our online
survey. This survey was most likely designed to be:
__A. a random sample of all C291 students
__B. a census of all C291 students
__C. a random sample of business students
__D. a random sample of 2nd year UBC students
__E. all of the above
b) The survey asked a wide range of questions. For each variable, circle the description which
best describes the type of data the variable represents.
Ethnic background Categorical Quantitative
Identifier Quantitativ
Height Categorical e Identifier
C290 grade Categorical Quantitativ Identifier
# hrs online per day Categorical e Identifier
Quantitativ
e
Data
QUESTION 1
: Question 1 “A sampling of sampling questions”
a) The Human Resources Department of a large university maintains records on its faculty
members. The table displays some of these data.
Payroll Years of Teaching Rating Salary
Number Birth date Faculty Employment (1-5 scale) Classification
1520 02/20/56 Law 25 4.1 IV
3210 05/13/62 Science 17 3.9 III
0342 10/12/69 Business 12 4.5 II
2988 02/27/78 Arts 4 4.3 I
Place an X in the space beside each variable that is best described as Quantitative.
__ Payroll Number __ Birth date __ Faculty
_X_Years of Employment _X_ Teaching Rating __ Salary Classification
*(Scale-point rating also count as Quantitative)
b) Which of the following is (are) based on cross-sectional data?
__A. Company quarterly profits
__B. Percentage of Canadian adults who work full-time __C.
Historical closing stock prices
__D. Yearly student enrolments __E.
Annual costs
Cross-sectional = Measure at ONE TIME POINT
c) Which of the following is (are) time series data?
__A. Number of employees in 2012
__B. This month’s demand for an automotive part
__C. This quarter’s sales of automobiles
__D. Weekly receipts at a clothing boutique
__E. Percentage of employees who are female Measure at
MORE THAN ONE TIME POINT
,d) The administration of a large university wants to study the types of wellness programs that
would interest its employees. They plan to survey a random sample of employees. Under
consideration are several sampling plans. Beside each plan, write the number of the sampling
strategy given in the following list. for each. Choose from among:
1 = Simple Random Sampling
2 = Stratified Random Sampling
3 = Cluster Sampling
4 = Systematic Sampling
_2_ (i) There are five categories of employees (administration, faculty, professional staff,
clerical and maintenance). Randomly select ten individuals from each category. _1_ (ii)
Each employee has an ID number. Randomly select 50 numbers. SRS=Each one have the same
chance of being selected
_3_ (iii) Randomly select a school within the university (e.g., Business School) and survey
all of the individuals (administration, faculty, professional staff, clerical and
maintenance) who work in that school. Each school is a ‘reasonable
representative’of the university
_4_ (iv) The HR Department has an alphabetized list of newly hired employees (hired
within the last five years). After starting the process by randomly selecting an
employee from the list, every fifth name is chosen to be included in the sample.
e) A manufacturer of toys claims that less than 3% of his toys are defective. When 100 toys were
drawn from one production run of 5,000 toys, 5% were found to be defective. For each term
on the left, select the matching answer from the list to the right, and write the number in the
blank.
_5__ Population 1 The 3% value
_3__ Sample 2 The 5% value
_4__ Sampling Frame 3 The 100 toys
_1__ Parameter 4 The 5,000 toys
_2__ Statistic 5 All toys produced
Statistics estimates the parameter
Pop: Sample ; Parameter: Statistics
,: Question 1 “A sole practitioner”
ASW, a regional shoe chain, has recently launched an online store. Sales via the Internet have
been sluggish compared to their brick and mortar stores, and management suspects that its
regular customers have concerns regarding the security of online transactions. To determine if
this is the case, they plan to survey a sample of their regular customers.
a) Suppose that ASW’s regular customers belong to a rewards program and have a
customer rewards ID number. ASW decides to randomly select 100 numbers. This sampling
plan is called:
__A. Simple Random Sampling
__B. Stratified Sampling
__C. Cluster Sampling
__D. Systematic Sampling
__E. Convenience Sampling
Every regular customer has the same chance of being selected for the sample
b) Suppose that ASW has an alphabetized list of regular customers who belong to their
rewards program. After randomly selecting a customer on the list, every 25th customer
from that point on is chosen to be in the sample. This sampling plan is called:
__A. Simple Random Sampling
__B. Stratified Sampling
__C. Cluster Sampling
__D. Systematic Sampling
__E. Convenience Sampling
c) “All regular ASW customers” is known as the ________ of the study.
__A. Parameter
__B. Statistic
__C. Target Population
__D. Sampling Frame
__E. Sample
d) Which of the following is the parameter of interest in the ASW study?
__A. All regular ASW customers
, __B. % of regular ASW customers who have concerns about online security
__C. ASW customers who belong to the rewards program
__D. % of ASW customers who belong to the rewards program but don’t shop online
__E. None of the above
A parameter is numerical characteristic (e.g. Mean, proportion, percentage)
e) One member of the management team at ASW suggests that their survey could be
done online. Customers logging on to the online store would be asked to complete the survey
and offered a coupon as incentive to participate. Which statement is true?
__A. This is a voluntary response sample
__B. This would result in an unbiased random sample
__C. This would result in a biased sample
__D. Both A and B
__E. Both A and C
: Question 1 “First things first”
a) At the beginning of the term we asked all Commerce 291 students to complete our online
survey. This survey was most likely designed to be:
__A. a random sample of all C291 students
__B. a census of all C291 students
__C. a random sample of business students
__D. a random sample of 2nd year UBC students
__E. all of the above
b) The survey asked a wide range of questions. For each variable, circle the description which
best describes the type of data the variable represents.
Ethnic background Categorical Quantitative
Identifier Quantitativ
Height Categorical e Identifier
C290 grade Categorical Quantitativ Identifier
# hrs online per day Categorical e Identifier
Quantitativ
e
