4. For each of the following statements, identify them as descriptive or inferential.

Explain
your choice. (2 points)
a. I sleep, on average, six hours a night.
i. This is descriptive, because it describes the amount of sleep had and does not
predict the amount of sleep they will have
b. We can expect very little rain this time of year.
i. Inferential, because it attempts to predict what will happen (presumably based
on past statistics)
c. The earlier you start studying, the more likely you will do well on the exams.
i. Inferential, because it makes a generalized prediction for a specific outcome
d. 25% of my dietary calories come from protein.
i. This is descriptive, because it describes this persons diet and once again,
makes no move to predict or generalize to a population based on this sample
5. Give two concrete examples of a population and a sample from that population. Why
might researchers have to rely on samples in each of these cases? (3 points)
A population would be everyone who got a flu vaccine, while a sample could contain people
who reside in Boston that got the flu vaccine. In this case, you want to rely on samples because it
would be near impossible to reach everyone in the world who got a flu vaccine this year, as well
as timely, pricey, and potentially not even worth the effort since a good sample size might be
able to give you an educated guess as to whether it is effective or not. Another population could
be everyone who shopped at Store X, while a sample would be 1,000 randomly selected
customers who shopped at the store in y month. If you wanted to get a customer satisfaction
survey, it would be much more beneficial to ask only 1,000 customers how happy they were with
their service, as opposed to hunting down everyone who had ever shopped there. Sometimes it is
not possible to contact everyone in the population and it can be a waste of resources.
6. For each of the following variables, identify if they are categorical, ordinal, discrete, or
continuous. (3 points)
a. Car class (e.g. compact, full size, etc.)
i. Categorical (since there is no sense of order, but describes membership)
b. Number of push-ups a person can do
i. Discrete, because it is determined by counting
c. Amount of sleep
i. Continuous variable, because it is measured
d. Breed of dog
i. Categorical, because it describes membership without order
e. Distance run
i. Continuous, because it is measured
f. College major
i. Categorical, because the majors are in no perceived orderFor each of the
following variables, select the correct measurement scalenominal,
ordinal, interval, or ratio. (3 points)
g. Political orientation
i. Nominal, because there is no order presented
Page 1 of 2

h. Years (e.g. 1701, 1982, etc.)

i. Interval, numbers denote magnitude of difference
i. List of beverage preferences
i. If you listed beverage preferences in rank, such as #1 is Coca Cola, #2 is
Pepsi, etc then it would be ordinal, because the numbers denote rank
order
j. Distance in miles
i. Ratio, because it is measuring length
k. Smoking status (smoker or nonsmoker)
i. Nominal, because there are no numbers involved (Categorical)
l. Age in categories (e.g. infant, toddler, adolescent, etc.)
i. Ordinal, because there is a sense of order in each category
7. Provide a brief example for each of the following research methods. Its perfectly fine to
make up hypothetical examples. (3 points)
a. Survey
i. If you were a manager at Store X, to gauge average customer satisfaction
you could survey a randomly selected portion of the population (such as
every 100th customer). It uses descriptive statistics and most likely, ordinal
variables as answers to each questions (Example: How satisfied are you
with your purchase? Answers: Very satisfied, somewhat satisfied, not
satisfied at all). Surveys are based largely on self-reported data.
b. Experiment
i. An experiment involves changing aspects of a situation to see if and how
different effects can be produced. For example, say a nutritionist wants to
see whether the temperature of water affects how much of it people drink.
They would take an independent variable (the water temperature) that they
can manipulate (1st group gets room temperature water, the 2nd group gets
slightly chilled water, and the 3rd group gets ice water) to see how it
affects the dependent or constant variable (the amount of water the person
is naturally inclined to drink). Experiments aim to predict, so they use
inferential statistics, and demonstrates cause and effect relationships.
c. Observational research
i. Similar to experiments, observational research looks at independent
variables effect on the dependent variable, but makes no attempt to
manipulate either. It attempts to predict (inferential statistics) but cannot
determine causality. For example, someone might look at data and see that
a higher overall increase of ice cream consumption in a certain beach town
also correlated with a higher incidence of drownings, but they could not
say that eating ice cream causes people to drown. With this information,
they could then try to understand why this is true.

Page 2 of 2