Question

Kim and Tracy are collecting data for their final project in their psychology
class, in which they are conducting a survey about people’s overall job
satisfaction. They decide to go to the local mall to collect their data. To get a
more varied sample, Kim surveys shoppers coming out of store A, a discount
clothing store, while Tracy surveys shoppers coming out of store B, a high-end
boutique.
A. Identify a possible problem with this type of sampling method.

Answer 1

the population they want to study is people in general. however, notice how they are both selecting from sources that are not representative of the general population. store A (the discount store) will disproportionally have low-income people and store B (the luxury boutique) will disproportionally have high-income people. if they want a more random, representative sample of the population it would be best if they both went to a general mall entrance that's not specific to a certain store.