Document Summary
A sample is a subgroup of the population you are interested in. For example take a farmer having sheep in an enclosure. This is the study population denoted by n. a small population you take from the population to collect the required information is called a sample and therefore gives sample size denoted by n. The way you select sheep is called the sampling design or sampling strategy. Each sheep which becomes basis for selecting your sample is called the sampling unit or sampling element. Identifying each sheep in the study population is called the sampling frame. If all elements in a sampling population cannot be individually identified, you cannot have a sampling frame for that study population. Your findings based on the information obtained from your respondents (sample) are called sample statistics. Your sample statistics become the basis of estimating the prevalence of the above characteristics in the study population.
