Question

A candidate for a US Representative seat from Indiana hires a polling firm to gauge her percentage of support among voters in her district.
a. If a 95% confidence interval with a margin of error of no more than 0.04 is desired, give a close estimate of the minimum sample size that will guarantee that the desired margin of error is achieved. (Remember to round up any result, if necessary.)
b. If a 95% confidence interval with a margin of error of no more than 0.02 is desired, give a close estimate of the minimum sample size necessary to achieve the desired margin of error.

Answer 1

Answer:

a) The minimum sample size is 601.

b) The minimum sample size is 2401.

Step-by-step explanation:

In a sample with a number n of people surveyed with a probability of a success of $\pi$, and a confidence level of $1-\alpha$, we have the following confidence interval of proportions.

$\pi \pm z\sqrt{\frac{\pi(1-\pi)}{n}}$

In which

z is the zscore that has a pvalue of $1 - \frac{\alpha}{2}$.

The margin of error is:

$M = z\sqrt{\frac{\pi(1-\pi)}{n}}$

For this problem, we have that:

We dont know the true proportion, so we use $\pi = 0.5$, which is when we are are going to need the largest sample size.

95% confidence level

So $\alpha = 0.05$, z is the value of Z that has a pvalue of $1 - \frac{0.05}{2} = 0.975$, so $Z = 1.96$.

a. If a 95% confidence interval with a margin of error of no more than 0.04 is desired, give a close estimate of the minimum sample size that will guarantee that the desired margin of error is achieved. (Remember to round up any result, if necessary.)

This is n for which M = 0.04. So

$M = z\sqrt{\frac{\pi(1-\pi)}{n}}$

$0.04 = 1.96\sqrt{\frac{0.5*0.5}{n}}$

$0.04\sqrt{n} = 1.96*0.5$

$\sqrt{n} = \frac{1.96*0.5}{0.04}$

$(\sqrt{n})^2 = (\frac{1.96*0.5}{0.04})^2$

$n = 600.25$

Rounding up

The minimum sample size is 601.

b. If a 95% confidence interval with a margin of error of no more than 0.02 is desired, give a close estimate of the minimum sample size necessary to achieve the desired margin of error.

Now we want n for which M = 0.02. So

$M = z\sqrt{\frac{\pi(1-\pi)}{n}}$

$0.02 = 1.96\sqrt{\frac{0.5*0.5}{n}}$

$0.02\sqrt{n} = 1.96*0.5$

$\sqrt{n} = \frac{1.96*0.5}{0.02}$

$(\sqrt{n})^2 = (\frac{1.96*0.5}{0.02})^2$

$n = 2401$

The minimum sample size is 2401.