A Gallup Poll asked a sample of Canadian adults if they tho
. A Gallup Poll asked a sample of Canadian adults if they thought the law should allow doctors to end the life of a patient who is in great pain and near death if the patient makes a request in writing. The poll included 270 people in Quebec, 221 of whom agreed that doctorassisted suicide should be allowed. (a) Construct 95% confidence interval for the proportion of all Quebec adults who would allow doctor-assisted suicide? Round your answers to three decimal places.
(b) How large a sample is needed to get the common + or - 3 percentage point margin of error with the same 95% confidence level?
Solution
A)
Note that              
               
 p^ = point estimate of the population proportion = x / n =    0.818518519          
               
 Also, we get the standard error of p, sp:              
               
 sp = sqrt[p^ (1 - p^) / n] =    0.023455707          
               
 Now, for the critical z,              
 alpha/2 =   0.025          
 Thus, z(alpha/2) =    1.959963985          
 Thus,              
 Margin of error = z(alpha/2)*sp =    0.045972341          
 lower bound = p^ - z(alpha/2) * sp =   0.772546177          
 upper bound = p^ + z(alpha/2) * sp =    0.86449086          
               
 Thus, the confidence interval is              
               
 (   0.772546177   ,   0.86449086   ) [ANSWER]
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b)
Note that      
       
 n = z(alpha/2)^2 p (1 - p) / E^2      
       
 where      
       
 alpha/2 =    0.025  
        
       
 Using a table/technology,      
       
 z(alpha/2) =    1.959963985  
       
 Also,      
       
 E =    0.03  
 p =    221/270 = 0.818518519  
       
 Thus,      
       
 n =    634.0368476  
       
 Rounding up,      
       
 n =    635   [ANSWER]

