Slide 1

Using Data Samples

Have you ever eaten King Cake? What about your friends? Let’s conduct a survey to determine if people in your school like King Cake. Which survey method would be best to use for determining if people like King Cake?

Four answer choices appear.

1. Ask the first thirty people in the lunch line at school. Give them a piece of King Cake to try.
2. Ask people in the lunch room who have cake for dessert. Give them a piece of King Cake to try.
3. Set up a tasting booth with free samples of King Cake for people to try.
4. Randomly select fifty people from your school using a randomly generated list. Give them a piece of King Cake to try.

Correct answer: D. This is a random sample where everyone has a chance to be chosen. People who like and do not like cake will be randomly represented in the survey.

Slide 2

As you have seen, it is important to be sure that the sample is representative of the population. Once a good sample is collected, the statistics collected can be used to gain information about a population by examining a sample of the population.

Image description: A slice of King Cake, surrounded by Mardi Gras decorations.

 Slide 3

Carl decides to collect a sample of people to determine if people like the Mardi Gras King Cake. After randomly selecting 50 people from his school using a randomly generated list, he gives them a piece of King Cake to try.

The participants rate how they like the King Cake on the following scale:

                  1: Gross!
2: It’s ok.              
Or 3: Yum!

Here are the results of this sample.

Description of work area:
A table appears. This table has fifty numbers, each representing the vote of the fifty people surveyed. The numbers in the table are: 3,2,2,3,2,1,2,1,3,3,2,3,3,3,3,1,3,3,1,3,3,1,1,1,2,3,3,2,3,1,3,3,1,3,3,1,3,1,1,3,3,3,3,2,2,3,1,2,2,1

(text on slide) Complete the following table to organize the data. Type your answers in the blanks.

Description of work area:
A table appears. The table has two columns, one titled “Rating” and one titled “Frequency”. In the rating column, three rows appear. The rows are labeled “1: Gross!” “2: It’s Okay” and “3: Yum!” In the Frequency column, three rows appear. The first row has ‘fourteen’ in it, indicating that fourteen people surveyed voted “gross.” The next two rows in this column have blanks for the frequencies to be entered.

Correct Answers: Eleven people voted for “It’s Okay.” Twenty-five people voted for “Yum!”

Slide 4

Which of the following is an appropriate conclusion for Carl to make?

Description of work area:
At the bottom of the slide a table appears that summarizes the “Results from a Random Sample of 50 people.” The table has two columns, one titled “Rating” and one titled “Frequency.” In the rating column, three rows appear. The rows are labeled “1: Gross!” “2: It’s Okay” and “3: Yum!” In the Frequency column, three rows appear. The first row has ‘fourteen’ in it, the second row has ‘eleven’ and the third row has ‘twenty-five’.

There are four answer choices, located at the middle of the page.

1. Half of the students in the survey like King Cake. This must mean half of America likes King Cake.
2. Twenty-eight percent of the students surveyed thought King Cake was gross. It is likely that, if a person at Carl’s school is selected at random, they will find King Cake okay or yummy.
3. The mean (average) rating for the King Cake is 2.22. This must mean that the students at Carl’s school think King Cake is “okay”.
4. Fifty percent of the students in the survey like King Cake. This means that half of the students in Carl’s school will like King Cake and half will not like King Cake.

The correct answer is: B. The data from this sample can be used to gain information about the population, which is the student body at Carl’s school.

Slide 5

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