Sociology 2205A/B Chapter 5: Chapter 5: Introduction to Inferential Statistics

• School: Western University
• Department: Sociology
• Course: Sociology 2205A/B
• Professor: William Marshall

Document Summary

The goal of probability sampling is to select cases so that the final sample is representative of the population. We can maximize the chances of a representative sample by following the epsem principle. Select the sample so that every element or case in the population has an equal probability of being selected. The most basic epsem sampling technique produces a simple random sample. We would need a list of all elements or cases in the population and a system for selecting cases from the list that will guarantee that every case has an equal chance of being select ed. Drawing cards from a deck, flipping coins etc. Cases are often chosen by using tables of random numbers: assign each case to a random number and then select cases through their random number, stop sele(cid:272)ti(cid:374)g (cid:374)u(cid:373)(cid:271)ers (cid:449)he(cid:374) you"(cid:448)e rea(cid:272)hed your desired sample size. This allows for the sample size to be very high probability that it will be representative.