What is the expected value of the numbers of calls for a survey? I was asked the following question by a medical doctor: He is working on a survey. Assume that he called 120 persons and 24 persons agreed to do the survey. The second time, he called 57 persons among those who refused the first time and 10 persons agreed to do the survey. What is the expected value of the number of phone calls for people to agree to do the survey?I first thought it would be (23*1+10*2)\120 Then I thought it would be 24\120*1+10\57*2

Paloma Sanford

Paloma Sanford

Answered question

2022-10-29

What is the expected value of the numbers of calls for a survey?
I was asked the following question by a medical doctor:
He is working on a survey. Assume that he called 120 persons and 24 persons agreed to do the survey. The second time, he called 57 persons among those who refused the first time and 10 persons agreed to do the survey. What is the expected value of the number of phone calls for people to agree to do the survey?
I first thought it would be
24 × 1 + 10 × 2 120 .
Then I thought it would be 24 120 × 1 + 10 57 × 2.

Answer & Explanation

Hilfeform5c

Hilfeform5c

Beginner2022-10-30Added 14 answers

It really depends on what exactly is the question and what are the assumptions regarding the population and their willingness to participate in the survey. Here is my approach, which might not be exactly what OP wants.
I assume that each person has a fixed probability p to agree, regardless of the number of phone calls. This is constant for all people and that the 57 people were chosen at random. Then, the number of calls until someone agrees to participate has a Geometric distribution with parameter p, and the average number of calls needed is 1 / p.
It is left to evaluate p. Based on the data, 24 people agreed on the first call, 10 on the second call, 47 didn't agree on the first two calls (so X 3 for them) and 39 people didn't agree on the first call (so X 2 for them). The likelihood function is therefore
L ( p ) = p 24 × [ ( 1 p ) p ] 10 × ( 1 p ) 2 39 × ( 1 p ) 3 47
The maximum of this function for p ( 0 , 1 ) is at p = 34 263 so the expected number of calls for a person to agree is 263 34 = 7.7
Sanity check: in the first round, the success rate was fifth, so the expectation based on that should be around . The people that didn't agree twice pull the success rate down, increasing the expected number of phonecalls.

Do you have a similar question?

Recalculate according to your conditions!

New Questions in Research Methodology

Ask your question.
Get an expert answer.

Let our experts help you. Answer in as fast as 15 minutes.

Didn't find what you were looking for?