Problem Solving

TASK 1

INTRODUCTION:

I have been asked to carryout a survey for the borough of Ealing on the topic of transport. Respondents are asked to keep records of all their journeys in the last two weeks. My target audience is all adults aged 16+. I am to consider age, gender and socio-economic class for my sample in order for it to reflect the actual population of Ealing.

Interpretation of Transport.

To clarify and to make the rest of this assignment meaningful I will assume transport to include:

Public Transport: - Rail, Underground, Bus.

Private Transport: - Any class of motor vehicle (Car, Moped, Van & Bicycle).

I will not consider Private Commercial Transport e.g. Taxis & Cabs in this survey as those that use them for transport would yield the same response as those taking buses or using their own vehicles. Both would experience the same factors in transit such as traffic, congestion charge or queues.

TASKS

The areas I will address in this assignment are:

1) Sample Size & Structure Ð'- why I have chosen a specific size and who will be invited to become a respondent forming the structure.

2) Selecting people/addresses to obtain the desired results/sample, the problems faced in order to gain these and how to best overcome them.

Sample Size & Structure from Total Population of Ealing.

The total population of Ealing is 300,000. 19% of these (57,000) are under the age of 16. Once we exclude this number we are left with a potential target audience of 243,000. This then divides into the following age groups:

Age Percentage Number of people in this age group in Ealing

16-19 5% 15,000

20-29 18% 54,000

30-44 26% 78,000

45-59 16% 48,000

60+ 16% 48,000

Total 243,000

These 243,000 can also be broken down into the following social-economic groups:

Socio- Economic Group Percentage of Population Number of people in this group in Ealing

Professional / Managerial 25% 60,750

Intermediate 40% 97,200

Routine/Manual 35% 85,050

Total: 243,000

Gender Breakdown

According to the British Census data, the gender breakdown of Ealing is 49.6% male 49.4% female. As the difference between the two is so small, I will assume a 50 Ð'- 50 break between the two.

Sample Size:

In order to make this survey time, money and administration manageable whilst obtaining the desired result, a good sample size to target is 10%, equating to 24,300 people. ( I have given reasons as to why 10% is ideal later in this assignment when I address problems we may face in achieving the desired response and how to overcome these). The next phase is to consider the sample structure, which is discussed on the next page.

Sample Structure Using Stratified Sampling.

In order to represent the population of Ealing accurately I will use the stratified sampling method. Stratified sampling takes into account factors such as age, gender and socio-economic groups Ð'- this being of importance to our survey and eliminates the possibility of sampling an un-representative audience which other methods can result to.

This put into practice using the tables of information provided to us, my sample of 24,300 will consist of the following groups/strata:-

Gender breakdown : - 12,150 male and 12,150 female respondents will be targeted. This gives a clean 50-50 divide.

Age Breakdown of Sample: 1,500 should be 16-19

5,400 " " 20-29

7,800 " " 30-44

4,800 " " 45-59

4,800 " " 60+

Total 24,300

Socio-economic groups Breakdown: 6,075 should be: Professional/managerial

9,720 " " Intermediate

8,505 " " Routine/manual

Total

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