A student in a wildlife biology class wants to determine the abundance of a rodent species in a local nature preserve, divided i
nto smaller blocks. She is concerned that she only has a modest number of traps and time to do the project, and wants to select the most appropriate sampling or experimental study design. 1. Which one of the following is most appropriate for this study?
Group of answer choices:
a. Natural experiment (observational study)
b. Stratified sampling
c. Cluster sampling
d. Systematic sampling
Cluster sampling is almost always more economical or more practical than stratified sampling or simple random sampling as it reduces costs by increasing sampling efficiency. Due to the fact that she has limited resources, this method is better to observe clusters of units in a population than randomly selected distributed in the local nature preserve and this method is more economical and quick.
Taking into account that the exercise researcher is looking with limited resources to study a population that is divided, her best option is cluster sampling, which is a method applicable to this type of population, we could select in each group randomly her sample, the observational study is discarded because she does not have much availability of time or resources, nor would the stratified study be useful because she should select subgroups and create them to take samples and this would take more time and resources and sampling systematic is not adequate because it must have all the individuals and after having the list select the sample, but as we know, it is a process that will study the number of individuals so this option is not feasible.
