Homecoming

A college Statistics class conducted a survey concerning community attitudes about the college's large homecoming celebration. That survey drew its sample in the following manner: Telephone numbers were generated at random by selecting one of the local telephone exchanges (first three digits) at random and then generating a random four-digit number to follow the exchange. If a person answered the phone and the call was to a residence, then that person was taken to be the subject for interview. (Undergraduate students and those under voting age were excluded, as was anyone who could not speak English.) Calls were placed until a sample of 200 eligible respondents had been reached.

a) Did every telephone number that could occur in that community have an equal chance of being generated?

b) Did this method of generating telephone numbers result in a simple random sample (SRS) of local residences? Explain.

c) Did this method generate an SRS of local voters? Explain.

d) Did this method generate an unbiased sample of households? Explain.