Population Vs Sample

Tomas del Rosario College
Graduate School
Capitol Drive, San Jose, Balanga City
Telefax No: (047) 791-6152; Tele No: (047) 791-6082
Population vs Sample: Definitions, Differences and Examples
In statistics, data plays an essential role in deciding the validity of the outcome. The data being used
must be relevant, correct, and representative of all classes. While more data is good to get impartial
results, it is crucial to make sure that the data collected is suitable for the problem at hand.
You can do this using population vs. sample. In this tutorial, you will learn all you need to know about
population vs. sample.
What is Population?
In statistics, population is the entire set of items from which you draw data for a statistical study. It can
be a group of individuals, a set of items, etc. It makes up the data pool for a study.
Generally, population refers to the people who live in a particular area at a specific time. But in statistics,
population refers to data on your study of interest. It can be a group of individuals, objects, events,
organizations, etc. You use populations to draw conclusions.
Graduate School
Figure 1: Population
An example of a population would be the entire student body at a school. It would contain all the
students who study in that school at the time of data collection. Depending on the problem statement,
data from each of these students is collected. An example is the students who speak Hindi among the
students of a school.
For the above situation, it is easy to collect data. The population is small and willing to provide data and
can be contacted. The data collected will be complete and reliable.
Post Graduate Program in AI and Machine Learning
If you had to collect the same data from a larger population, say the entire country of India, it would
be impossible to draw reliable conclusions because of geographical and accessibility constraints, not to
mention time and resource constraints. A lot of data would be missing or might be unreliable.
Furthermore, due to accessibility issues, marginalized tribes or villages might not provide data at all,
making the data biased towards certain regions or groups.
Graduate School
What is a Sample?
A sample represents the group of interest from the population, which you will use to represent the data.
The sample is an unbiased subset of the population that best represents the whole data.
To overcome the restraints of a population, you can sometimes collect data from a subset of your
population and then consider it as the general norm. You collect the subset information from the groups
who have taken part in the study, making the data reliable. The results obtained for different groups who
took part in the study can be extrapolated to generalize for the population.
Figure 2: Sample
The process of collecting data from a small subsection of the population and then using it to generalize
over the entire set is called Sampling.
Samples are used when :
 The population is too large to collect data.

 The data collected is not reliable.
 The population is hypothetical and is unlimited in size. Take the example of a study that
documents the results of a new medical procedure. It is unknown how the procedure will affect
people across the globe, so a test group is used to find out how people react to it.
A sample should generally :
 Satisfy all different variations present in the population as well as a well-defined selection
criterion.
 Be utterly unbiased on the properties of the objects being selected.
 Be random to choose the objects of study fairly.
Graduate School
Say you are looking for a job in the IT sector, so you search online for IT jobs. The first search result
would be for jobs all around the world. But you want to work in India, so you search for IT jobs in India.
This would be your population. It would be impossible to go through and apply for all positions in the
listing. So you consider the top 30 jobs you are qualified for and satisfied with and apply for those. This is
your sample.
Differences Between Population and Sample
Now, try to understand what a sample and a population are, with the help of suitable examples.
Population Sample
All residents of a country would constitute the All residents who live above the poverty line would
Population set be the Sample
All residents above the poverty line in a country All residents who are millionaires would make up the
would be the Population Sample
Out of all the employees, all managers in the office
All employees in an office would be the Population
would be the Sample
Table 1: Population vs Sample

Graduate School
Use Slovin’s formula to find out what sample population of 1, 645 teachers you need to take fo a survey
questionnaire with the level of confidence of 95%.
District Population Size % Sample Size

Abucay 200
Bagac 110
Dinalupihan 250
Hermosa 120
Limay 115
Orani 100
Orion 150
Pilar 115
Mariveles 250
Morong 125
Samal 110
Total 1645

Population Vs Sample

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Population Vs Sample

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Population Vs Sample

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Tomas del Rosario College

Capitol Drive, San Jose, Balanga City

Telefax No: (047) 791-6152; Tele No: (047) 791-6082