TUTORIAL 1

STA116

QUESTION 1

The tourism industry in Malaysia is an important foreign exchange earner, contributing to economic growth,
attracting investments and providing employment. Realizing the importance of tourism industry, the focus of
the government is to enhance the country's position as a leading foreign tourist destination. Amy, a researcher
from a well known consulting firm is given a task to determine the level of satisfaction on the services provided
at tourist attractions destinations located throughout Malaysia among foreign tourists. Questionnaires are
used as the tool for data collection and a random sample of 50 foreign tourists are selected at various tourist
visit destinations. Each tourist selected was asked to give a score to the services provided at the tourists visit
destinations. In addition, other information such as gender, age, education level, occupation, income, country
of origin, reasons for traveling, and length of stay were also recorded.

a) State the population and sample for the above study.

b) Does the study involve primary or secondary data? Give a reason to support your answer.
c) Name any three variables from the above study. For each variable chosen, state its type and the level
of measurement.

QUESTION 2

There are 72 accountants attending a seminar at Dungun Hilton. 60 of them are male and the rest are female.
The organizer of the seminar wishes to estimate the proportion of accountants who had changed companies
within three years. The organizer only wants a sample of 18 accountants to obtain an estimate.

a) State the population of this study.

b) State the sampling frame for this study.
c) Suggest an appropriate sampling technique the organizer should use. Give your reasons.
d) Advise the organizer on how to obtain a sample of 18 accountants required.

QUESTION 3

Tourism industry is one of the contributors in the Malaysian economic growth. As a result, the Ministry of
Tourism is consistently monitoring the travel agencies in providing good transportation services to the tourists.
A research was conducted to identify the level of satisfaction towards the transportation services provided by
the agencies. Due to limited time and costs, a random sample of 200 tourists were selected. Questionnaires
were distributed to tourists who used the transportation services. Among the information collected were
gender, age, number of visits to Malaysia, types of transportation used during the vacation and their
perception on transportation services (very poor, poor, fair, good, excellent).

a) Identify the population for the study.

b) Determine if the study employs a sample survey or a census. Give a reason to support your answer.
c) State TWO (2) variables in the study. Hence, identify the types of variables and the corresponding
scales of measurement.
d) State an appropriate graphical presentation for each of the variables stated in part (c).
e) State the most appropriate data collection method for the study. Give a reason to support your answer.

QUESTION 4

A sampling frame consists of 3000 names of telephone subscribers in the Dungun area. These names are
listed in alphabetical order. A survey will be conducted to elicit information on the services provided by the
telephone company. A sample of 200 subscribers is needed for this survey.

a) Explain how the random sample should be chosen using Systematic Sampling.
b) Why is systematic sampling the most appropriate method for this survey?
c) State the most appropriate method of data collection for this survey and give one reason.
d) Give two reasons why sampling is preferred compared to census in this survey.
QUESTION 5

In the automobile industry, customer service is a crucial factor affecting car sales. The management of a
reputed automobile company is interested in determining the level of customers’ satisfaction with the service
provided by the company’s service centers. The company has altogether 40 service centers throughout
Malaysia. A sample of 8 centers was selected at random. Questionnaires are disseminated to all customers
who service their cars at these 8 selected service centers on one selected day (the day of the survey). One
of the questions asked is satisfaction level on the services provided (using rating: good, fair, poor).

a) State the population of the above study.

b) Name the variable of interest for the above study. State its type and its level of measurement.
c) State the sampling technique used in the survey. Explain briefly how the sample is selected. Give one
advantage of using this sampling technique.

QUESTION 6

A headmaster of a private higher learning institution is interested to study the relationship between the
students’ hours spending on social media and their academic performances. He believed that the more time
students spent on social media, the more likely the students will fail in their academics. The institution has a
total of 2500 students. Based on the previous semester examinations, the students’ academic performance
has been categorized as Excellent, Moderate and Low, whereby the number of students in each category
are 750, 1350, 400, respectively. A random sample of 100 students was selected for this study and the time
spent on social media was recorded.

a) State the population and the sample for the above study.
b) Identify whether the researcher conducted a census or sample survey. Give a reason for your answer.
c) Suggest another sampling method that can be used by the headmaster. Explain briefly the sampling
method chosen.

QUESTION 7

SS Airlines has implemented a new boarding policy. In order to determine its customers’ opinion of this new
policy, a group of researchers made a list of all its flights and randomly selected 30 flights. All passengers on
those flights were invited to answer a questionnaire during a certain week. One of the survey items was
“Please rate your overall boarding experience today based on the following scale: 1- Excellent; 2- Good; 3-
Fair; 4- Poor; 5- Very poor’.

a) State the population and the sample of this study.

b) Name the sampling method used in this study. Give a reason for your answer.
c) Identify the type of variable and the scale of measurement for the variable “boarding experience rating”.

QUESTION 8

The manager of a cloth factory wishes to estimate the average time (in minutes) for an operator to complete
a certain job. The factory has 100 operators. Ten operators are selected at random and their time to complete
a particular job is recorded.

a) State the population and sample of the survey.

b) What is the variable of interest in this research? State also the type of variable.
c) What sampling method is used in this research? Give one advantage of using this method.
d) Is histogram suitable to represent the variable of interest above? Give a reason for your answer.