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182 PART II: Descriptive Methods2 A preferred sampling plan would use a stratified random sample in which the sample sizes forGreeks and independents are proportional to the population values. With 200 students in thesample, you would select 150 students from the sampling frame of independent students and50 students from the sampling frame of Greek students.Answer to Challenge Question 1A In general, larger sample sizes do make it more likely that the sample will be representative.The problem in this study is that the final sample (though large) represents a lowresponse rate from the original sample of 100,000 (4.5%). The low response rate and the topicof the survey make it likely that only women who were very motivated to complete thesurvey responded. It is unlikely the sample of 4,500 women represents the entire populationof women.B The low response rate does not make it possible to argue that the conclusions drawn by theauthor are incorrect. Neither can the author argue on the basis of this sample that the conclusionsare correct. We simply cannot know based on this evidence whether the conclusionsare correct or incorrect. There is at least one good way to determine if the results of thissurvey are correct. You would need to obtain from the literature the results of one or moresurveys on women’s sexual attitudes and practices. It would be essential that these othersurveys had used representative samples of women. Then you would compare the resultsof this survey with those of the other surveys. Only if the results of the present survey correspondedto those of the surveys with the representative samples would we consider theresults of the present survey correct. Of course, you could also carry out your own survey,one that avoids the problems that are present in this survey, and determine whether yourresults are similar to those of this author-researcher!