Discussion:
Ranking Factors
In a nationwide survey of 1000 companies with more than 50 employees, managers were asked to rank various factors that influence their decisions in hiring employees.
Each factor was ranked on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being not important and 10 being very important. The factor "educational background" received a mean ranking of 7.2.
Response the following questions:
- Is the sample mean of 7.2 exactly the same as the population mean?
- If another sample of 1000 companies is taken, do you expect the sample mean to be 7.2 again? Why or why not?
- By repeating this experiment many times with different samples, what values for the sample means would be possible? What values would repeat more often?