This exercise relates to Chapter 10 (and more).
The placement office at TAMUCC has hired you to assist it in determining the size of starting salaries and the range of salary offers received by graduating seniors. The placement office has always gathered some information about salaries in that some students voluntarily report the name of the company they work for and their starting salary through the alumni relations department. The office feels that these statistics may be biased and wishes to approach the whole tasks more systematically. Spend some time thinking about the issues you would face and the decisions you would need to make to obtain the desired information from last year’s graduating seniors.
To receive credit for this exercise, create a new journal entry and answer the following questions:
- Based on what you’ve learned so far this term, briefly explain the questionnaire administration method you would select for this study (e.g., internet, mail, etc…).
- Describe how you would select a sample of respondents to answer questions about starting salaries. Why would you use this particular sample? Do you think it might be preferable to canvass all graduating seniors instead of relying on a sample? Why or why not?
- What types of nonsampling errors might you expect to encounter with this study? Be specific (speculate as necessary to explain the types of errors and the source/cause of the errors). How would you control for each type of nonsampling error?
- Given your selection of a data collection method above, what response rate would you expect for this study? What techniques would you use to improve the response rate? Explain.
