The organic food industry exceeded $81 billion in 2012 and is expected to grow b
ID: 3053599 • Letter: T
Question
The organic food industry exceeded $81 billion in 2012 and is expected to grow by 14% per year through 2018. According to the Organic Trade Association, 81% of families purchase organic food some of the time.
a. What type of survey most likely was used to substantiate the latter claim. Justify your answer.
b. What might be some of the problems with the sampling conducted? Give an example of two of the four possible types of survey errors that may occur during the collection of data from food shoppers?
Explanation / Answer
Answer to the question)
Part a)
Since the data is provided by organic food industry , and it states that 81% of families purchase orgianic food some of the time, this tells us that the data is obtained via some online poll where people have provided their responses. It may be online poll or emailing the questionnaire to the families.
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Part b)
The following problems may have arisen due to this survey method:
1. coverage error: Via mail or via online poll one cannot get every unit of the population in the sampling frame, There may be people who do not have an email id or the existing email id is not updated. There may be people did not turn up online while the poll was conducted or missed the email or there can be any such reason which leads to failure of covering the entire population in the sampling frame
2. Sampling error: The claim says 80% of the families purchase online food some of the time. This phrase some of the time makes the analysis unappropriate. We need a fixed time period , and fixed quantity of food purchased by people to draw a better conclusion about the demand of organic food.
3. Non-response error: this error arises when the emails sent to family do not response. Not all the sampling units resond , or they fail to understand the question or any other reason may lead to non-response.