In a study of stress levels among UCT academics, researchers obtained a complete list of the names of academic employees at the time of the study. They listed the employees alphabetically and then numbered them consecutively. One hundred random numbers between 1 and the total number of employees were then generated using a random-number generator on the computer. The 100 employees whose numbers corresponded to those generated by the computer were interviewed for the study.

a) What is the population of interest in this study?

b) The 100 employees interviewed were randomly sampled as described. Are the measurements still affected by sampling error? Explain.

c) What are the main advantages of random sampling in this example?

d) What effect would a larger sample size have had on sampling error?