A graduate student in sociology intends to study alcohol consumption behaviors of undergraduate students at a small, private university using an internet survey. The graduate student obtains a list of all undergraduate student e-mail addresses (N = 25,000).
- Determine the necessary sample size to estimate the proportion of students, p, who consume alcohol 3 or more times per week with a bound on the error of estimation, B, of 0.05. Prior studies suggest p to be approximately 30%.
- Determine how large a sample should be taken in order to estimate the population mean number of times per week that undergraduate students consume alcohol, , with a bound on the error of estimation, B, of 1.0 times per week. Use 1.7 times per week as an approximation of the population standard deviation,. Which approach is more efficient in terms of the sample size necessary?