Tag: Sample

In statistics, a sample is a subset of a population. Typically, the population is very large, making a census or a complete enumeration of all the values in the population impractical or impossible. The sample represents a subset of manageable size. Samples are collected and statistics are calculated from the samples so that one can make inferences or extrapolations from the sample to the population. This process of collecting information from a sample is referred to as sampling.
A complete sample is a set of objects from a parent population that includes ALL such objects that satisfy a set of well-defined selection criteria. For example, a complete sample of Australian men taller than 2m would consist of a list of every Australian male taller than 2m. But it wouldn’t include German males, or tall Australian females, or people shorter than 2m. So to compile such a complete sample requires a complete list of the parent population, including data on height, gender, and nationality for…