Question
What is a real-life example of systematic random sampling?
Answers
GPT-4o mini
A real-life example of systematic random sampling can be found in conducting surveys for customer satisfaction in a retail store. Here’s how it might work:
Imagine a supermarket wants to gather feedback on customer experience. They maintain a record of all customers who make purchases, and the store has an electronic system that allows them to efficiently track the number of transactions.
1. **Define the population**: The population in this case would be all customers who shopped at the supermarket over a certain period, say one week.
2. **Decide on sample size**: The store management decides they want to survey 100 customers.
3. **Calculate the sampling interval**: If the store had 1,000 customers in that week, the sampling interval can be determined by dividing the total number of customers (1,000) by the desired sample size (100), which gives a sampling interval of 10.
4. **Randomly select a starting point**: A random integer between 1 and 10 (the sampling interval) is chosen. Let’s say the random number selected is 7.
5. **Systematically select the sample**: The store would then select every 10th customer starting from the 7th customer. This means they would survey the 7th, 17th, 27th, and so on, up to the 997th customer.
By using this method, the supermarket ensures that every customer has an equal chance of being selected, while also simplifying the sampling process. This systematic approach is not only efficient but also ensures a representative sample for gathering customer feedback.
Imagine a supermarket wants to gather feedback on customer experience. They maintain a record of all customers who make purchases, and the store has an electronic system that allows them to efficiently track the number of transactions.
1. **Define the population**: The population in this case would be all customers who shopped at the supermarket over a certain period, say one week.
2. **Decide on sample size**: The store management decides they want to survey 100 customers.
3. **Calculate the sampling interval**: If the store had 1,000 customers in that week, the sampling interval can be determined by dividing the total number of customers (1,000) by the desired sample size (100), which gives a sampling interval of 10.
4. **Randomly select a starting point**: A random integer between 1 and 10 (the sampling interval) is chosen. Let’s say the random number selected is 7.
5. **Systematically select the sample**: The store would then select every 10th customer starting from the 7th customer. This means they would survey the 7th, 17th, 27th, and so on, up to the 997th customer.
By using this method, the supermarket ensures that every customer has an equal chance of being selected, while also simplifying the sampling process. This systematic approach is not only efficient but also ensures a representative sample for gathering customer feedback.