Question

2. Say your research deals with social networks. Your first step is to study the properties of the Facebook network of college students at CU-Boulder campus. The next step is to compare your findings to the national college student Facebook network. (a) What are the populations you are concerned with? (b) What is the relationship between these populations? (c) What are some of the characteristics of the networks you might consider? Pick three as an example. (d) If you had infinite time and resources, would you be able to measure these char- acteristics for every member of these populations? (e) Say you don't have infinite time and resources – how would you go about esti- mating those population characteristics?

Answer 1

Solution:

(a) Populations here, in this case, is a Facebook network of CU boulder college & national college students. CU- boulder college student's Facebook network is one population & national college students' Facebook network is another one.

(b) The relation between these populations is both are student groups.

(c) some of the key characteristics of the study can be:

1. Mean number of friends for each student in the population

2. Mean age of the network people for each student

3. Mean number of hours spent on Facebook/day

4. Mean number of posts per week by the student

5. Mean number of activities by the student on Facebook pages

6. Gender proportion of the network for each student

(d). Even if I had infinite time & resources, It is not possible to study & measure these characteristics for every member of these populations. the simple reason could be these characteristics are time-varying ones, it is impossible to complete the study if we plan to study the population, as there is no definite population as it moves with time.

(e) If we have to estimate the characteristics in a finite time & resources: we can proceed with defining the time frame for the study & also using sampling techniques for selecting the students within each population.