Question bank: Census and Sample Research

Explain what a census research is.

In the context of a school that wants to understand its students' musical preferences to organize events, the need for a survey has arisen. Considering that the school has a total of 1200 students distributed in three shifts (morning, afternoon, and evening), the board faces the challenge of deciding whether to conduct a complete survey, interviewing all students, or to opt for a representative sample that saves time and resources while maintaining the same statistical reliability. Given the situation, which research method - census or sample - would be more suitable for this school and why?

During an interdisciplinary class that addressed notions of statistics and geography, 7th-grade students were challenged to plan a survey to determine the most used means of transportation by the inhabitants of their city on the daily route from home to school. Considering the acquired knowledge about census and sample surveys, the students thought about conducting an exhaustive count in a total of 40 blocks in a central region of the city, where both low-income families, who usually use public transportation, and high-income families, who tend to use private vehicles, reside. Based on the study's guidelines, the students decided that the survey should be representative and capable of offering results that could be generalized to the entire population of the city without the need to cover all its inhabitants. In this scenario, which type of survey (census or sample) should the students choose to achieve their objectives and why?

The 7th-grade class is conducting a project on snack preferences among the school's students. They decide to conduct a survey to collect information about the students' favorite options. The school has 1,000 students, and the class is considering whether to conduct a census or a sample survey.

In a study on the reading habits of students at a school, a researcher wants to collect data to analyze the reading preferences of 7th-grade students. The researcher can choose to conduct a census survey, where all 7th-grade students will be interviewed, or a sample survey, where a representative sample of this group will be selected for the interview. Considering that the census survey can be more time-consuming and costly, while the sample survey may have results with a margin of error, discuss which method would be more appropriate for this study. Additionally, explain the possible consequences of choosing the research method on the interpretation of results and the formulation of conclusions about the reading habits of 7th-grade students.