Study abroad. A survey on 1,509 high school seniors who took the SAT and who completed an optional web survey between April 25 and April 30, 2007 shows that 55% of high school seniors are fairly certain that they will participate in a study abroad program in college.43
(a) Is this sample a representative sample from the population of all high school seniors in the US? Explain your reasoning.
(b) Let's suppose the conditions for inference are met. Even if your answer to part (a) indicated that this approach would not be reliable, this analysis may still be interesting to carry out (though not report). Construct a 90% confidence interval for the proportion of high school seniors (of those who took the SAT) who are fairly certain they will participate in a study abroad program in college, and interpret this interval in context.
(c) What does "90% confidence" mean?
(d) Based on this interval, would it be appropriate to claim that the majority of high school seniors are fairly certain that they will participate in a study abroad program in college?