Registered Health Information Administrator (RHIA) — Question 151

You and your colleague are designing a study to try to determine the ideal mean cost for discretionary service. You will market your service to a very large population. Your colleague thinks you will get the best data if you take lots of small samples. You think the data will be neat reliable if you take one or two very large samples.

Answer options

• A. Your colleague is right—the mean of multiple samples will yield more reliable results.
• B. You are right—the means of a few large samples will yield more reliable results.
• C. You are equally correct—there is little difference in the reliability of these sampling methods.
• D. You are equally wrongunles you use stratified sampling, you cannot expect reliable B

Correct answer:

Explanation

The correct answer is A because taking multiple small samples helps to capture variability within the population, leading to a more accurate estimate of the mean. Option B is incorrect as relying on only a few large samples may overlook important variations. Options C and D do not address the advantage of using multiple samples over fewer large ones in ensuring reliability.