Mia is considering moving to a different apartment complex than where she currently lives. To better understand rent prices, she takes a large random sample of apartment complexes in her city and finds out the monthly cost of rent for a -bedroom apartment at those complexes. She finds the average rent of apartments in the sample is about $800 per month. (a) Identify the population of interest and the sample used.
(b) Was this an observational study or an experiment? If it was observational, was it prospective or retrospective? If it was an experiment, was random sampling or random assignment used?
(c) What are the variables in the study? Identify each variable as quantitative or categorical.
(d) Comment on whether or not the results of the study can be generalized to the population, and if the findings of the study can be used to establish causal relationships.