EC255 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Cluster Sampling, Royal Institute Of Technology, Convenience Sampling
Document Summary
Data are gathered from samples and conclusions are drawn about the population as a part of the inferential statistics process. The term census refers to a study of all units of the population of interest. The term sample refers to a study of only a portion of that population. Reasons for taking a census: to eliminate the possibility that by chance a randomly selected sample may not be representative of the population, safety of the consumer. Even when proper sampling techniques are implemented in a study, it is possible that a sample could be selected by chance that does not represent the population. The sample is taken from a population list, map, directory, or other source used to represent the population this list, map or directory is called the frame. Ideally, a one-to-one correspondence exist between the frame units and the population units. In reality, the frame and the target population are often different.
