1. Parking at a large university has become a very big problem. University admin
ID: 3376055 • Letter: 1
Question
1. Parking at a large university has become a very big problem. University administrators are interested in determining the average parking time (e.g. the typical amount of time it takes a student to find a parking space) of its students. Several administrators inconspicuously followed 175 students during the first week of the Spring 2018 semester and carefully recorded their parking times. The average time for the 175 students was 6.25 minutes.
Answer each of the following questions pertaining to the above paragraph.
a) Identify the population being targeted by this study.
b) Identify the sample.
c) Can we say the sample chosen was randomly selected? If it is, explain why. If it’s not, explain why not and note what type of sample it could be (given the information above).
d) Identify the variable?
e) Is the data that resulted from this variable QUALITATIVE or QUANTITATIVE? If you say quantitative, further classify the variable as discrete or continuous.
f) Identify the statistic.
g) Identify the parameter.
h) What is the best estimate for the value of the parameter? Explain how accurate this estimate is.
Explanation / Answer
a) The population being targeted in this study is the students studying in the university who have a car
b) The sample is the first week of Spring 2018 semester data of parking times.
c) The sample was not randomly chosen as we can't generalise the parking time for the entire year because the first week of the semester is the most busy week. It could be a purposive sample serving a specific need for the university.
d) The variable is the time taken to park their vehicles.
e) The data is quantitative and discrete in nature. The time is recorded in minutes (integer)
f) The statistic is the mean of 6.25 minutes of parking times obtained from the sample of 175 students in the university during their first week.
g) The parameter is the time taken by the students to park their vehicles.
h) The sample mean is the best estimate for the value of our parameter. This must be quite accurate as we wouldn't face any outliers in the parking times. It is an unbiased estimator.
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