Question

When determining the sample size n, if the value found for n is 79.2, we would choose to sample 79 observations.

Answer 1

Answer:

False.

See explanation below,

Step-by-step explanation:

This statement is FALSE

When we want to calculate a sample size we need to specify thre important things:

1) Confidence level

2) Margin of error desired

3) Parameter of interest

For this case let's assume that our parameter of interest is the population mean $\mu$ and for this case we know that the margin of error is given by this formula:

$ME=z_{\alpha/2}\frac{\sigma}{\sqrt{n}}$  (1)

And on this case we specify a value for the margin of error and we are interested in order to find the value of n, if we solve n from equation (1) we got:

$n=(\frac{z_{\alpha/2} \sigma}{ME})^2$   (2)

Let's assume that the calculation for some values gives to us a result of n = 79.2 For this case is not appropiate round the answer to the nearest integer since we can't satisfy the condition of margin of error desired, so it's always better round up the answer to the nearest integer on this case 80 in order to ensure that the margin of error would be the desired.