explore phrasing questions\nonline activity u...
explore phrasing questions\nonline activity use a real - world situation to complete the explore.\ninquiry how can the way you collect data affect the results?\nlearn collecting data\na population consists of all the members of a group of interest about which data will be collected. since it may be impractical to examine every member of a population, a subset of the group, called a sample, is sometimes selected to represent the population. the sample can then be analyzed to draw conclusions about the entire population.\nsample data are often used to estimate a characteristic of a population. therefore, a sample should be selected so that it closely represents the entire population. also, the larger the sample size, or the more samples taken, the better it represents the population.\na bias is an error that results in a misrepresentation of a population. if a sample favors one conclusion over another, the sample is biased and the data are invalid.\nexample 1 sample bias\npolls before the 2010 elections for members of the u.s. house of representatives, pollsters called american households on their landline phones to see how they planned to vote. what kind of sample bias might have affected the poll?\nstep 1 identify the intended population.\nthe population is \nstep 2 identify the sample method.\nthe data for this poll were collected over landline phones, so the sample consists of likely voters who have a landline.\nstep 3 determine potential bias.\nbecause not all likely voters have landline phones, the results could be because not all likely voters are available for this sample.\ngo online you can complete an extra example online.