Social science: sampling and policy

Work five linked questions on an original sustained passage before opening feedback.

Paper packet. Every task here also exists on screen, where it is checked automatically; answers written on paper are not assessed by Nydus. When you are back at a device, enter your answers there.

1. What you will learn

Apply the reading methods to social science: sampling and policy; separate what is stated, inferred, qualified and changed by new evidence.

2. Practice

Read the shared passage and answer every question before submitting. These are original instructional questions; a repeated passage is review, not fresh diagnostic evidence.

[1] A fictional town surveys residents about changes to its evening bus service. Most respondents favor later departures. A planner recommends extending the service, citing the result as evidence of unmet demand. A colleague notes that the questionnaire was available only through the bus operator's current passenger newsletter. Residents who do not presently ride the bus may have different preferences or needs.

[2] The planner replies that current passengers are especially well placed to report difficulties with the existing timetable. This is reasonable as far as it goes. Their experience is relevant to the service they use. It does not make the sample representative of everyone who might use a different timetable. A person who cannot return home late enough using the current service might never become a current passenger and therefore never receive the questionnaire.

[3] The town conducts additional interviews in workplaces and neighborhoods with few current riders. Some interviewees identify later departures as useful; others name fare cost or distance to a stop as their main obstacle. The new interviews therefore broaden the account of unmet need without showing that the first respondents were mistaken about their own experience. Different groups can face different barriers. Treating all low ridership as a timetable problem would overlook that variation.

[4] The planner proposes a limited extension accompanied by records of who uses it and follow-up questions about remaining barriers. This design would not allow every change in ridership to be attributed to the extension automatically: changes in fares, employment or other transport could also matter. Nevertheless, the combination of a bounded pilot and broader inquiry offers more informative evidence than treating one self-selected survey as a complete picture. The goal is to connect a proposed service change to the people and constraints it is intended to address, while retaining uncertainty about how far the observed response will generalize.

Which statement best expresses the author's conclusion?

The newsletter survey represents every potential passenger.
Current passengers know nothing about the existing timetable.
Every barrier to bus use is caused by departure times.
Any ridership change proves the extension caused it.
Combine a bounded service pilot with broader inquiry into who faces which barriers.

Which group could be excluded by the initial survey method?

Residents who receive the newsletter but express no preference for later buses.
Current passengers who also take part in the later workplace interviews.
Residents who do not ride because the current service ends too early.
Newsletter readers dissatisfied with the current timetable.
Regular evening riders who receive the passenger newsletter.

The phrase 'as far as it goes' signals:

acceptance of the planner's limited point without accepting representativeness
a literal claim about the bus route's distance
complete rejection of passenger experience
proof that all questionnaire responses were inaccurate
an instruction to stop all further interviews

Which principle best fits the analysis?

A pilot can establish causation without considering other changes.
Different barriers imply that no service improvement is worthwhile.
One majority preference settles all resource decisions.
A group's useful experience should not automatically be treated as representative of people excluded from that group.
Only nonusers can describe a service accurately.

Fares fall at the same time the later service begins, and ridership rises. This would:

establish that every new rider has the same reason for traveling
introduce another plausible contributor to the increase, limiting attribution to the timetable change alone
prove that later departures had no effect
make the initial survey representative of nonriders
show that stop distance cannot matter

3. What you can do now

After a delay, reconstruct the central distinction in social science: sampling and policy. Explain one tempting rival's failure, then test that correction on a different passage.