Tutorial Chapter 1

Intoduction to Statistics (STA104)

March 25, 2025

Question 1.

State the type of measurements (nominal/ordinal/interval/ratio) for each of the following data:

(a) Numbers on the jerseys of volleyball players

(b) Marital status of respondents

(c) Social class of residents

(d) Income level of respondents

(e) Ethnic group of respondents

(f ) Academic qualification of respondents

(g) Position of students in a class

(h) IQ score of students

(i) Examination scores for Statistics

(j) Blood type

(k) The weight of beauty contestants

(l) Shoe size

(m) The top three bestselling car models in Malaysia

(n) Time taken to serve a customer at the post office counter

(o) The distance jumped by the athletes

(p) Brands of electric fans

Question 2.

What are the differences between primary and secondary data? Why is primary data more suitable
to use? Give a disdvantage of secondary data.

Question 3.

ABC University has 14 branches throughout the country. At present, there are 189,008 students
studying in that university in various programs. The university practices the Quality Management

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 Intoduction to Statistics (STA104) Tutorial Chapter 1

System to ensure the quality of service provided by its staff to the students. Recently, the university
obtained the prestigious certification of ISO 9001:2000 for all of its faculties. The management of
ABC University is interested in measuring the level of students’ satisfaction of the services delivered
by the various departments within the university.
Among the departments are Student Affairs, Academic Affairs, Library Services, Security Services,
Sports Facilities, Dining Halls, Residential Colleges, Computer Labs and Transport Facilities. Since
the total number of students is large, the researcher intends to select a few students from each
faculty to participate in the survey. Discuss the following.

(a) What is the population?

(b) Who are the respondents?

(c) What is the sampling frame (list of individuals from which the sample can be obtained)?

(d) What are the main variables required in the above research?

(e) What is the most suitable data collection method?

Question 4.

State whether each statement below is true or false

(a) A study of statistics can be divided into two sections: qualitative and quantitative methods.

(b) When constructing questionnaires, a researcher must ensure that the questions are related to
and satisfy the objectives of the research.

(c) Inferential statistics consists of methods dealing with collection, tabulation, summarization
and presentation of data.

(d) Ordinal scales permit comparison of scores or categories in terms of smaller or larger, higher
or lower, or, best or worst.

(e) Examination grades of A to F are nominal scales of measurements.

(f ) The highest scale of measurement is the interval scale

(g) The age of a person is a ratio scale of measurement.

(h) The ranking of contestants in a singing competition by the judges is an ordinal scale.

(i) Marital status is an example of a qualitative variable.

(j) The weight of a durian is considered a continuous variable.

Question 5.

State the type of variable, whether each of the following variables is qualitative or quantitative. If
it is quantitative, identify whether it is discrete or continuous.
 Intoduction to Statistics (STA104) Tutorial Chapter 1

(a) Ethnicity

(b) Education level

(c) Age

(d) Number of children

(e) Color of the eyes

(f ) Weight

(g) The number of students in the class

(h) Time taken to write a computer program

(i) Computer brands exhibited at the computer fair

(j) Colors of the cars preferred by the buyers

(k) Income of the workers in a plastic manufacturing company

(l) Number of books read in a year

Question 6.

Define the following terms:

(a) Sampling frame

(b) Population

(c) Discrete variable

(d) Census study

(e) Secondary data

(f ) Nominal scale measurement

Question 7.

A fast-food restaurant asks costumers to evaluate the performance of its driven-through services.
They are to choose from Excellent, Good, Average and Poor. State the category of scale used in
this study.

Question 8.

In one of the questionnaires, respondents were asked the question: ’Were your monthly sales in 2024
more or less than in 2023?’ What type of scale is the researcher applying?
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Question 9.

The flood in Kelantan is the worst in history where 100,000 victims have to find shelter at food
relief centers and some 1,000 homes were completely destroyed. The above figures represent what
type of scale?

Question 10.

Malaysian diver Dato Pandelela Rinong won a bronze medal in the 2012 Olympics in London. She
scored an average of 7.5 based on a ten-point sccale. What type of scale was used to evaluate divers’
performance?

Question 11.

The manager of a cloth factory wishes to estimate the average time (in minutes) for an operator to
complete a certain job. The factory has 98 operators. Eight operators are selected at random and
their time to complete a particular job is recorded

(a) State the population.

(b) What is the variable of interest? State also the type of variable.

(c) What sampling method is suitable for this research? Give two advantages of using this method.

(d) What method of data collection is suitable for this research? State one advantage and one
disadvantage of using this method.

Question 12.

The human resource manager of NZ Group is interested in studying the job satisfaction level of
their employees. There are 45 employees in the Administrative Department , 35 in the Account
Department and 80 in the Production Department. The variables of interest in this study are their
job satisfaction levels, the number of days of medical leave taken in a month, and the number of
participants in the company’s social activities. Only 40 employees will be randomly selected as a
sample.

(a) What is the suitable sampling technique for use in this study? State your reason.

(b) How many employees should be selected from each department?

(c) Twenty employees from the Production Department are selected using systematic sampling.
Describe this method.

(d) Name one qualitative variable and one quantitative variable used in this survey.
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Question 13.

A researcher wishes to conduct an English newspaper readership survey based on race in a town
with a population of 100,000 people. The population breakdown is: 50% Chinese, 30% Malay, 18%
Indian and 2% others,

(a) State the population for this survey.

(b) State the possible sampling frame for this survey.

(c) Suggest an appropriate sampling method for this survey. State one advantage of the sampling
method used.

(d) State the method of data collection for the above survey. Give two reasons why this method
is suitable.

(e) Suppose the researcher is unable to locate a sampling frame; suggest an alternate sampling
method. Briefly describe the sampling method suggested.

Question 14.

A study will be carried out on the social economics status of residents in an area. The population in
the area will be divided into urban and rural residents. Ten present of the urban and rural residents
will be randomly selected. Name the sampling method suitable for use in this study.

Question 15.

A market research firm intends to collect information on the recreation expenditure of families for
the Federal Territory and Selangor state in the last year. Three groups of residents were identified.
Thirty percent of the residents belong to the lower income group, fifty percent belong to the middle
income group while twenty percent belong to the higher income group. A questionnaire is prepared
and distributed to each unit of sample selected.

(a) State the variables for this study.

(b) Give an example of sampling frame in which the population units can be obtained.

(c) Suggest the most suitable sampling method and give one reason why this method is selected.

Question 16.

A national survey is carried out to identify the current issues of concern in Malaysia. The Malaysian
population comprises 50% youths below the age of 20 years, 40% adults between the ages of 20 and
50 years and 10% senior citizens of age more than 50 years. The respondents are asked to comment
on national problems they consider worrying. These include issues such as poverty, drug abuse,
unemployment, illegal immigrants and high crime rates.
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(a) What information needs to be collected in this survey?

(b) State the population for this study.

(c) Suggest a suitable sampling technique for this study. Explain how a sample size of 1,000 can
be selected using this sampling technique.

(d) Suggest a data collection method that is most suitable for this study.

Question 17.

The National Electricity Ltd. branch in Klang is conducting a survey to find out the average
monthly consumption of electricity in a housing estate. The area consists of 20 blocks of double
storey houses. Each block consists of ten houses. A random sample of five blocks is selected. All
the houses in each block are included as units in the sample.

(a) Determine the population in this study.

(b) What is the variable of interest?

(c) What is the sampling technique used? Give an advantage and a disadvantage of the technique
used.

Question 18.

The management of UiTM is interested in obtaining information on problems which influence stu-
dent’s academic performance. Among the problems identified are a lack of studying skill, low
motivation, peer influence, disciplinary problems and lack of recreation or sport facilities. UiTM
has 14 branches located throughout Malaysia. Assume you are asked to carry out this research,

(a) Identify the population of interest

(b) What method of sampling would you use? Explain.

(c) Give one advantage and one disadvantage of the selected sampling method.

(d) How would you obtain the sampling frame for this study?

(e) State the variables of interest in this study.

Question 19.

State the appropriate sampling methods for each of the following processes.

(a) The process in which the sample includes elements from each of the homogeneous segments.

(b) Groups of population elements are first identified. Then, some of these groups are chosen at
random. Elements in each of the randomly selected groups are studied.
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(c) The jth element in the first k elements in the sampling frame is randomly selected. Then every
kth element in the sampling frame is selected starting starting from the randomly selected jth
element until sufficient elements are selected.

Question 20.

A sampling frame comprises 3,000 names of telephone subscribers in the Johor Bahru area. These
names are listed in an alphabetical order. A survey is conducted to obtain information on the
services provided by a telephone company. A sample of 200 subscribers is selected for the survey.

(a) Explain how the random sample is chosen using systematic sampling.

(b) Why is systematic sampling the most appropriate method for this survey?

(c) State the most appropriate method of data collection for this survey and give one reason to
support it.

(d) Give two reasons why sampling is preferred compared to the census in this survey.

Question 21.

A survey is conducted by a group of students to study the demographic characteristics of dropout

at a university. There are 600 dropouts and a sample of 100 chosen as respondents.

(a) What is the sampling frame for this survey?

(b) State the type of variable for each of the following demographic characteristics:
(i) Ethnicity
(ii) Age
(iii) Education level
(iv) Number of siblings
(v) Marital status

(c) Identify a possible probability sampling technique to select 100 dropouts from the dropout
list. Explain how the selection is done.

Question 22.

A survey is conducted to study the students’ perception towards the ’Leadership Motivation Course’.
All the students staying in the hostel have attended the course. There are 10 blocks of hostels and
each blocks of hostel consists of five levels. In this survey, four blocks of hostels are randomly
selected and then only two levels are randomly selected from each chosen block. Data are collected
from the students staying in the selected levels.

(a) State the population of this survey

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(b) State the sampling technique used

(c) What is the most suitable data collection method? Give an advantage of this method

Question 23.

At the check-out counter of a hotel, guests were given the following questionnaire to answer.

Taking all things into consideration, how would you rate our overall service
of the hotel?
From scale of 1 to 10, 1 being extremely dissatisfied to 10 being outstanding,
how best would you describe your experience staying with the hotel?
□1 □2 □3 □4 □5 □6
□7 □8 □9 □ 10

(a) State the target population of this study

(b) State the method of data collection used in this study.

(c) Is the method of data collection used appropriate?

(d) State the type of scale used to measure the performance.

(e) State the variable in this questionnaire.

Question 24.

Another part of the questionnaire in Question 23 is given below.

Please tick the box that best describes your feelings about the item listed.
2* Your Rating on Staff Performance
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Staff courtesy
Staff helpfulness
Staff efficiency
Door service
Luggage service
Front desk service
Housekeeping service
Room comfort
Bathroom equipment
Value for money
Additional comments:

Table 1: A part question in questionnaire

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(a) State the type of scale used to measure staff performance for each service.

(b) If the manager wants to get the overall performance of staff, what should he do?

(c) What is the purpose of asking hotel guests to give additional comments?

Question 25.

Another part of the questionnaire in Question 23 is given below

(i) Is this your first visit to this hotel? □ Yes □ No

(ii) Please rank the items below from 1 to 10 based on your order of preference.
Standard of maintenance
Quality of service
Quality of food and drink
Business facilities
Value for money
Prestigious image
Conference facilities
Location
Comfort of guest room
Lobby ambience
(iii) Based on your experience, would you recommend this hotel to your friend and business associted?
□ Yes □ No

Table 2: A part question in questionnaire

(a) State the scale used to measure the response in (i)

(b) State the scale used to measure the response in (ii)

(c) State the scale used to measure the response in (iii)