Advice columnist Ann Landers once asked her divorced readers whether they regretted their decision to divorce. She received approximately 30,000 responses, about 23,000 of which came from women. Nearly 75% said they were glad they divorced, and most of them said they wished they had done it sooner. Explain why this sample is certainly biased. What is the likely direction of the bias? That is, is 75% probably higher or lower than the truth about the population of all adults who have been divorced?

Question

Nathan Blackburn

Mathematics

26 February, 05:01

Advice columnist Ann Landers once asked her divorced readers whether they regretted their decision to divorce. She received approximately 30,000 responses, about 23,000 of which came from women. Nearly 75% said they were glad they divorced, and most of them said they wished they had done it sooner. Explain why this sample is certainly biased. What is the likely direction of the bias? That is, is 75% probably higher or lower than the truth about the population of all adults who have been divorced?

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Evangeline Mckee · Answer 1

The answer to the question is;

Biased towards one side of a two sided statistics. Disproportionate men to women in the sample.

Step-by-step explanation:

A biased sample is a sample for a statistical study that is of a particular inclination and already categorized and as such will not be a good bases to draw conclusions from. It is a situation where the selected sample is not representative of the general population

In the question, with regards to the sample referring to whether the divorced readers regretted their decision to divorce

Out of 30,000 respondents 23,000 were women that is 23000:30000*100 or 76.67 % of the res ponders were women and 75 % said they were glad they did.

However in the general population, the number of men = number of women in a divorce as such there should be

Extra 23000-7000 men or 16,000 more men in he study.