Sleepy Again Suppose you want to study the number of hours of sleep full-time college students at your college get each evening. To do so, you obtain a list of full-time students at your college, obtain a simple random sample of ten students, and ask each of them to disclose how many hours of sleep they obtained the most recent Monday.
a. What is the population of interest in this study? What is the sample

Verified step by step guidance

1. Identify the population of interest by considering the entire group about which you want to draw conclusions. In this case, it is all full-time college students at your college.
2. Define the sample as the subset of the population that you actually collect data from. Here, it is the simple random sample of ten full-time college students selected from the list.
3. Understand that the population represents the whole group you want to study, while the sample is the smaller group you use to make inferences about the population.
4. Recognize that the sample should be randomly selected to ensure it is representative of the population, which helps in making valid generalizations.
5. Summarize by clearly stating: the population is all full-time college students at your college, and the sample is the ten students chosen randomly from that population.

Key Concepts

Population

The population refers to the entire group of individuals or items that a study aims to understand or draw conclusions about. In this question, the population is all full-time college students at the college, as they are the group whose sleep habits are of interest.

Sample

A sample is a subset of the population selected for actual study or observation. Here, the sample consists of the ten full-time students randomly chosen from the population to report their hours of sleep, representing the larger group.

Simple Random Sampling

Simple random sampling is a method where every member of the population has an equal chance of being selected. This technique helps ensure the sample is unbiased and representative, which is crucial for making valid inferences about the population.