One way of selecting an SRS is to assign a number to every unit in the population, then use a random number table to select units from the list. A page from a random number table is given in file rnt.dat. Explain why each of the following methods will or will not result in a simple random sample.
a. The population has 742 units, and we want to take an SRS of size 30. Divide the random digits into segments of size 3 and throw out any sequences of three digits not between 001 and 742. If a number occurs that has already been included in the sample, ignore it. If we used this method with the first line of random numbers in rnt.dat, the sequence of three-digit numbers would be
749 700 699 611 136 . . .
We would include units 700, 699, 611, and 136 in the sample.
b. For the situation in (a), when a random three-digit number is larger than 742, eliminate only the first digit and start the sequence with the next digit. With this procedure, the first five numbers would be 497, 006, 611, 136, and 264.
c. Now suppose the population has 170 items. If we used the procedures described in (a) or (b), we would throw away many of the numbers from the list. To avoid this waste, divide every random three-digit number by 170 and use the rounded remainder as the unit in the sample. If the remainder is 0, use unit 170. For the sequence in the first row of the random number table, the numbers generated would be
69 20 19 101 136 . . .
d. Suppose the population has 200 items. Take two-digit sequences of random numbers and put a decimal point in front of each to obtain the sequence
0.74 0.97 0.00 0.69 0.96 . . .
Then multiply each decimal by 200 to get the units for the sample (convert 0.00 to 200):
148 194 200 138 192 . . .
e. A school has 20 homeroom classes; each homeroom class contains between 20 and 40 students. To select a student for the sample, draw a random number between 1 and 20; then select a student at random from the chosen class. Do not include duplicates in your sample.
f. For the situation in the preceding question, select a random number between 1 and 20 to choose a class. Then select a second random number between 1 and
40. If the number corresponds to a student in the class then select that student; if the second random number is larger than the class size, then ignore this pair of random numbers and start again. As usual, eliminate duplicates from your list.