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In statistics, a population is a set of similar items or events which is of interest for some question or experiment. [1] A statistical population can be a group of existing objects (e.g. the set of all stars within the Milky Way galaxy) or a hypothetical and potentially infinite group of objects conceived as a generalization from experience (e.g. the set of all possible hands in a game of ...
In statistics, quality assurance, and survey methodology, sampling is the selection of a subset or a statistical sample (termed sample for short) of individuals from within a statistical population to estimate characteristics of the whole population. The subset is meant to reflect the whole population and statisticians attempt to collect ...
The sample size is an important feature of any empirical study in which the goal is to make inferences about a population from a sample. In practice, the sample size used in a study is usually determined based on the cost, time, or convenience of collecting the data, and the need for it to offer sufficient statistical power. In complex studies ...
Demography is the statistical study of all populations. It can be a very general science that can be applied to any kind of dynamic population, that is, one that changes over time or space. Econometrics is a branch of economics that applies statistical methods to the empirical study of economic theories and relationships.
Statistics itself also provides tools for prediction and forecasting through statistical models. To use a sample as a guide to an entire population, it is important that it truly represents the overall population. Representative sampling assures that inferences and conclusions can safely extend from the sample to the population as a whole. A ...
A population parameter is any characteristic of a population under study, but when it is not feasible to directly measure the value of a population parameter, statistical methods are used to infer the likely value of the parameter on the basis of a statistic computed from a sample taken from the population. For example, the sample mean is an ...
A "parameter" is to a population as a "statistic" is to a sample; that is to say, a parameter describes the true value calculated from the full population (such as the population mean), whereas a statistic is an estimated measurement of the parameter based on a sample (such as the sample mean). Thus a "statistical parameter" can be more ...
An example of cluster sampling is area sampling or geographical cluster sampling.Each cluster is a geographical area in an area sampling frame.Because a geographically dispersed population can be expensive to survey, greater economy than simple random sampling can be achieved by grouping several respondents within a local area into a cluster.