Chapter 10, Problem 26E

Parent opinion, part 1 In a large city school system with 20 elementary schools, the school board is considering the adoption of a new policy that would require elementary students to pass a test in order to be promoted to the next grade. The PTA wants to find out whether parents agree with this plan. Listed below are some of the ideas proposed for gathering data. For each, indicate what kind of sampling strategy is involved and what (if any) biases might result.

1. a) Put a big ad in the newspaper asking people to log their opinions on the PTA website.
2. b) Randomly select one of the elementary schools and contact every parent by phone.
3. c) Send a survey home with every student, and ask parents to fill it out and return it the next day.
4. d) Randomly select 20 parents from each elementary school. Send them a survey, and follow up with a phone call if they do not return the survey within a week.