Assignment Task:
The U.S. Department of Education has within it an institute known as the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) that collects, analyzes, and disseminates information about educational issues in America. Within NCES is the Secondary Longitudinal Studies Program, which has studied American high-school students for more than 40 years.
Read the basic information about the study linked below, and then answer the questions.
NCES Secondary School Longitudinal Survey:
One of the specific studies conducted by this institution is known as the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009. This survey study had three primary research questions:
What are students' trajectories from the beginning of high school into postsecondary education, the workforce, and beyond?
What major careers do students decide to purse: when, why, and how?
How do students choose science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) courses, major, and careers?
In 2009, more than 23,000 9th-graders across the country completed the survey. The students were enrolled in 944 schools (both public and private), and they were randomly selected from those schools
Explain why the sample is so large, with reference to the population that the researchers want their results to represent.