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The more people you survey, the higher the confidence that the questionnaire is representative of the entire population, or the 'confidence interval'. Since the population was randomly sampled & non-responses don't correlate to the topic questions, you can assume that the 90 students are representative of the entire population with +- some confidence interval.



Yes, but we know neither the size of the population nor the confidence interval had the full 120 students responded.

Secondly, non-responses may actually correlate to the topic questions! For all anyone knows, students may not respond because

- too busy studying

- too busy partying

- too busy with intramural sports

- too disillusioned, feeling that it will not make a difference.

Etc




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