How would you select a simple random sample of those Peaceful Valley homeowners who paid their subdivision association dues last year? What, if any, sample bias might result from this approach? How could a two-step cluster sample be used here? Identify this sample method and describe how it could be used to select a representative sample of Peaceful Valley households.
Case 9.2: Jetadiah Brown wants to establish a pet store called Jet’s Pets. Jet thinks there is an opportunity on the north side of the city, because he knows that many new subdivisions have been built there and many families have since moved in. Plus, he knows there are no pet stores on the north side yet. This growth in the number of families and the lack of competitors suggests a strong business opportunity for Jet’s Pets. Jet wants to survey the approximately 20,000 families living in the two ZIP code areas that constitute his geographic target market. Of course he cannot survey all of them, so he must use a sample. For each of the following possible ways to select a sample of families living in several subdivisions in two ZIP code areas: (1) identify the type of sample method; (2) identify the sample frame; (3) indicate what, if any, sample frame error there is; and (4) indicate the degree to which the resulting sample will be representative of all families living in the two ZIP code areas.
