|
|
|
|
|
Our populations of interest were those of the Kalamazoo College student body, as well as residents of the city of Kalamazoo. Kalamazoo College attracts students from all over the world, bringing in a diverse population. We were interested in comparing the spending habits of Kalamazoo College students to the Kalamazoo population, as we were curious if there would be any relationship between these two groups of spenders. Specifically, we hoped to prove that Kalamazoo College students tended to have a larger entertainment spending budget than the Kalamazoo population, given that we hypothesized the average household income for Kalamazoo College students is higher than that of the average resident of the city of Kalamazoo. Our student sample was selected through the use of a random e-mail generator. This allowed us to randomly select students from the Kalamazoo College directory. Our student sample size was 170, and our response rate was 58/170, or 34.12%. This sample is representative of the Kalamazoo College student body as it represents a large proportion of the student population, roughly 4.5% of the population of 1300. We believe that our sample is an accurate representation of the population due to its random nature. Our sample for the city of Kalamazoo was collected though a random / systematic selection process using the 2003 - 2004 Kalamazoo phone book. We accomplished this by selecting the fifth name from the top (or the first name after the fifth from the top that resided in Kalamazoo) on every other odd page. Our sample for the city of Kalamazoo was 57/185, or 30.81%. The data for these participants was collected over the phone, and directly added to our Excel data sheet. Although this sample is proportionately less of the population than our student population, we believe that it is still representative of the Kalamazoo population. Through our randomization process, we aimed to survey a diverse sample of Kalamazoo residents in order to provide us with unbiased results that accurately describe the characteristics of Kalamazoo residents. |