A dermatologist at a medical clinic wants to estimate the proportion of residents in a city who experience seasonal dry skin. The dermatologist surveys a random sample of 150 patients who visited the clinic in December and finds that 90 of them (60%) reported experiencing seasonal dry skin. Which of the following is the most appropriate conclusion based on this study?
- AApproximately 60% of all residents in the city experience seasonal dry skin.
- BApproximately 60% of all residents in the city who visit any medical clinic in December experience seasonal dry skin.
- No reliable conclusion can be drawn about the proportion of all residents in the city who experience seasonal dry skin because the sample is not representative of the city's population.Cevap
- DExactly 60% of the residents who visit this specific clinic throughout the entire year experience seasonal dry skin.
Cevap
No reliable conclusion can be drawn about the proportion of all residents in the city who experience seasonal dry skin because the sample is not representative of the city's population.
The correct conclusion is that no reliable conclusion can be drawn about all residents of the city. For a sample's findings to be generalized to a larger population, the sample must be randomly selected from that population. In this study, the sample is composed of patients at a dermatology clinic, who are more likely to have skin concerns, and the study was done in December, when dry skin is seasonally more common. Therefore, the sample is not representative of the city's general population, and we cannot generalize the 60% statistic to the entire city.
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Anahtar Kavram
Generalizability of study results based on sample selection and representativeness.