Question for APAtutor

Question for APAtutor

A random selection of files from a student counseling center revealed the following reasons why college students seek services:
Mental health issues
25
Learning/school issues
15
Relationship issues
5
Other
5
What does it mean to say the files were randomly selected? How would the researcher randomly select files? In other words, what does the process look like? What is the probability that if we pulled another student file from the counseling center the student would fall in each of the following categories a) mental health issues, b) learning/school issues OR relationship issues, c) any category except other? Would our probabilities and results be different if we used convenience sampling? Why or why not?
Also we have to comment on our classmates responses. I will post two of them and you respond your thoughts to what they wrote. (1) To begin this discussion I would like to make clear the process of random sampling as well as probability. As per our readings the meaning of random sampling is “A method of selecting samples so that all members of the population have the same chance of being selected for a sample” ( Heiman, 2012). This gives a broad spectrum to the ability to give many different people a chance at being able to participate. If there were a choice select of questions that would appeal more to one particular group or topic there would be less of a chance of equal opportunity. The meaning of probability in our readings teaches us that when used probability means the” random chance of events”(Herman ,1012). What is meant by these files being randomly selected is that out of many other reasons that students may seek services these were chosen for no true reason other than to gather information on a few.different reasons as to gain a perspective on different things. This enables us to study the random/different reasons without relying on just one or two major ones. The more of a selection the better chance there is for various people to be understood instead of just a select few. To go about selecting random files one would gather all the different categories of files and let us say that there are 30 categories when selecting we want to have the ability to have everyone represented so lets say they chose 15 of the thirty files. This wold enable us to give half of the files and all who participated an equal chance at being chosen. For instance in our discussion we are shown that 25 of the fifty students were in the Mental health issues which means that half or .5 were in that category. For the learning/ school issues we see that there were 15 which would represent .3 when reduced. In the category of relationship issues we have 5 students which would be .1 and the same would fare for the category of “other”. This gives us a random number per category and also gives us some higher and some lower numbers to even things out. The probability that when another student is chosen that they would be in the Mental Health category would be one in 25, this is the higher probability as we can see that for this random selection this is the highest category selected. With the category of learning/school issues the chances would be one in 15 and as for the last two they would be one in 1. We see through random selection that we can come to a type of probability using the numbers we receive. So for instance since the Mental Health category is the highest we can see that the probability of another random student chosen has a higher chance of being in that category. I do believe that with convenience sampling which is a type of sampling that has the choice of gathering just random people that are near by and convenient to get to with little to no effort we certainly would obtain different probabilities. The reason being that it may only gather people from lets say a certain group or area. For instance if we were at a high priced coffee shop and decided to do a random survey of those who were accessible at that time , yes it could be seen as random but you would only get that certain group and things of the nature in our list would get a different response than if we chose the students lets say from a cafeteria on campus. Yes there would still be a random factor but the spectrum of people would be smaller. .
Heiman, Gary W. Behavioral Science STAT students edition 2012
(2)What does it mean to say the files were randomly selected?
Random sampling is defined as a “method of selecting samples so that all members of the population have the same chance of being selected for a sample” (Heiman, 2012). In other words, with random sampling, the researcher is selecting his sample from the population without any pattern of selection.
How would the researcher randomly select files? In other words, what does the process look like?
There are several different ways you can set up a random selection. One method you can use is to randomly assign a number to each population member and then use a random number generator to select individuals for the sample.
What is the probability that if we pulled another student file from the counseling center the student would fall in each of the following categories a) mental health issues, b) learning/school issues OR relationship issues, c) any category except other?
.50 b) .40 c) .90
Would our probabilities and results be different if we used convenience sampling? Why or why not?
. Convenience sampling is used as an inexpensive way to approximate the results of a study using an easily accessible sample (Argosy University Online, 2015). Due to the lack of controls of this type of sampling the probabilities and results can vary greatly from sample to sample and may or may not be indicative of the population.
Argosy University Online. (2015). Psychological Statistics/PSY210. Retrieved from:
http://myeclassonline.com/re/DotNextLaunch.asp?courseid=11459986
Heiman, G. W. (2012). Behavioral Sciences: STAT. Belmont, CA, USA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning (Heiman ii). Retrieved May 08, 2015

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