Check Who a Small Poll Reaches

Supplied materials

• Original fictional library poll: volunteers asked 24 Saturday chess-club attendees, all of whom responded, “Would you use a new chess shelf?” Eighteen answered yes, six no. The library also serves weekday homework visitors and a story group; none of those groups was invited. No personal information is collected in this exercise.

Learn the idea

A sample is the group from whom information is collected. The target population is the larger group a question might concern. A convenience sample reaches people who happen to be accessible, such as one club’s attendees. Even an accurate count of their responses may omit people with different interests or schedules.

Eighteen out of twenty-four is seventy-five percent of these respondents. The denominator and description belong in the result. This poll does not measure preferences among all library users or prove that missing groups oppose the shelf. A broader invitation can improve coverage, but voluntary responses alone still do not automatically yield a representative population estimate.

1. Calculate the respondent yes share.
2. Write the sampled group and occasion beside the percentage.
3. Name the two supplied user groups not invited.
4. Propose a paper and spoken invitation at weekday and story-group times, explaining the coverage improvement without claiming guaranteed representation.

Check your reasoning

Your answer is temporary and is not saved to an account. Download your current answer before leaving or reloading. Written work on paper or in another app stays in your own file.

Take it further

Changed input: a second voluntary invitation at homework time yields 12 additional respondents who did not answer the first poll; three say yes. Model reasoning: “Together 21 of the 36 distinct respondents said yes, about 58.3%. I can report that combined respondent result and identify the two invitation settings; I still cannot label it the preference of all library users.”

Nothing here is saved to an account or sent to a teacher. The answer download includes your current choice and any checked feedback.