The Research Group has been hired by the National Internet Service Providers Association to determine the following:

▪ What specific factors motivate people to choose a particular Internet service provider (ISP)?

▪ How do these factors differ between choosing an ISP for home use and choosing an ISP for business use?

▪ Why do people choose one ISP over the others? How many have switched ISPs in the past year? Why did they switch ISPs?

▪ How satisfied are they with their current ISP?

▪ Do consumers know or care whether an ISP is a member of the National Internet Service Providers Association?

▪ What value-added services do consumers want from ISPs (e.g., telephone support for questions and problems)?

The Research Group underbid three other research companies to get the contract. In fact, its bid was more than 25 percent lower than the next lowest bid. The primary way in which The Research Group was able to provide the lowest bid related to its sampling methodology. In its proposal, The Research Group specified that college students would be used to gather the survey data. Its plan called for randomly selecting 20 colleges from across the country, contacting the chairperson of the marketing department, and asking her or him to submit a list of 10 students who would be interested in earning extra money. Finally, The Research Group would contact the students individually with the goal of identifying five students at each school who would ultimately be asked to get 10 completed interviews. Students would be paid $10 for each completed survey. The only requirement imposed in regard to selecting potential respondents was that they had to be ISP subscribers at the time of the survey. The Research Group proposal suggested that the easiest way to do this would be for the student interviewers to go to the student union or student center during the lunch hour and ask those at each table whether they might be interested in participating in the survey.

Questions 

1. How would you describe this sampling methodology?

2. What problems do you see arising from this technique?

3. Suggest an alternative sampling method that might give the National Internet Service Providers Association a better picture of the information it desired.