In the Australian mathematics curriculum, Year 12 students (aged 16-17) are asked to solve conditional probability problems that involve the representation of the problem situation with two-way tables or three-dimensional diagrams and consider sampling procedures that result in different correct answers. In a small exploratory study, we…

Online purposive samples have unknown biases and may not strictly be used to make inferences about wider populations, yet such inferences continue to occur. We compared the demographic and drug use characteristics of Australian ecstasy users from a probability (National Drug Strategy Household Survey, n = 726) and purposive sample (online survey…

Formal inference, which makes theoretical assumptions about distributions and applies hypothesis testing procedures with null and alternative hypotheses, is notoriously difficult for tertiary students to master. The debate about whether this content should appear in Years 11 and 12 of the "Australian Curriculum: Mathematics" has gone on…

Objective: This study examines the levels of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) related stigma among the Iranian population and the factors that contribute to the formation of stigma within the study population. Design: A quantitative research design was used in this research whereby participants completed…

This article considers various kinds of probability and non-probability samples in both experimental and survey studies. Throughout, how a sample is chosen is stressed. Size alone is not the determining consideration in sample selection. Good samples do not occur by accident; they are the result of a careful design. (Author/JAZ)

Student's empirical sampling approach is used to assess the magnitude of the sampling errors of statistics describing a recursive causal model. The data were gathered with four complex sample designs commonly used in educational surveys. Jackknife and half-sample error estimates are applied to the data. (Author/CTM)