You will hear 3 students discussing a survey they are going to do
Phil: Hi Mel. Hi Laura. Sorry I’m a bit late. I got held up by the bus. It just didn’t come for ages.
Mel: Don’t worry. You’re only a couple of minutes behind and we’ve only just been chatting.
Laura: Right then. We’re here to organize the survey that we’re going to do. Mel, you said that you’d discuss with Professor Donald Walker what type of survey we were going to do.
Mel: Yes. I spoke to Professor Walker two days ago and I told him that the surveys that we were considering were a telephone survey, a street survey and a mail survey. He thought that the phone one would be too expensive for us and the postal one would take too long so we decided we should do the street one.
Phil: I think that’s right. If we do the street one then we can get the whole thing done in one day and we can get on with analyzing the results.
Mel: Yes, that’s right. Now, there are some other things that Professor Walker wanted to know about. How big should the survey be?
Laura: Well, the ideal figure for a survey such as this should be about a thousand people but that will take us about a month to get that many people and we just don’t have that much time. On the other hand, if we just choose 100 people, the survey won’t be statistically significant.
Phil: So, what about something in the middle. What about 600 ?
Mel: Still too many. That’ll take us ages. 400?
Laura: Let’s split the difference and say 500.
Mel/Phil: OK
Laura: And how many questions? If there are too many we’ll just have the same problem.
Mel: Professor Walker said we should have no more than 10 or people get bored ten . 10 then?
Phil: I think even fewer. 8.
Laura: I think 3 fewer again to make sure we can get the numbers done quickly okay .
Phil: OK, I agree with that.
Mel: I’m not sure but I suppose so.
Mel: Now, Professor Walker asked where we were going to do the survey.
Laura: Does he want to avoid that area then?
Mel: Probably! Now we can either all stay together or split up and do different locations .
Laura: Well, if we split up then I think we’ve got a better chance of getting more people surveyed .
Phil: Yes. I agree with Laura.
Mel: OK. Now, I made a list of the possible locations in Westley where we could station ourselves . There’s the town square, at the entrance to the train station, at the University cafeteria, outside Dobbins department store, on the corner of the High Street and College road, the bus station and the corner of the High Street and Wilkins Road. What do you think?
Phil: I think the square is great but the people at the train station will be traveling and often in a hurry.
Laura: I agree with all that and I think the bus station will have the same problem as the train station.
Mel: OK, that’s those two out then.
Laura: I think the other ones in town were good too. The cafeteria will have too many students and that will create too great a bias to our survey . We need a good cross section of the population and anywhere too close to the university won’t give us that.
Phil: Laura’s right. So, out of the other town ones, I think that the two on the High Street corners are good.
Mel: I don’t agree. The High Street corner with College Road will be good but the corner with Wilkins Road is too far out. Not enough people will come by there.
Laura: Yes, Mel’s right there. We should use Dobbins department store instead.
Phil: I can see your point. OK, that’s settled then. All three of us will be stationed in town then but not the Wilkins Road position.