Term
| Sample population and elements |
|
Definition
| Population is all of the individuals that the researchers are interested in studying. Sample population is the subset of the overall population that is included in the study. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The common characteristics that define the population of interest to be studied by the researcher. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The ability to give a reasonably accurate portrayal of the research subject's characteristics and known diversity. As applied to survey samples, or case-study samples, this is judged by the extent to which key characteristics of the sample are the same as the characteristics of the population from which the sample was selected. In relation to single cases, the criterion would be the typicality of the case selected. The term is also applied to research reports, for example to assess whether verbatim quotations, incidents described in detail, or other selectively reported results reflect the full variety and weight of the results obtained. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
Sampling error comprises the differences between the sample and the population that are due solely to the particular units that happen to have been selected.
For example, suppose that a sample of 100 american women are measured and are all found to be taller than six feet. It is very clear even without any statistical prove that this would be a highly unrepresentative sample leading to invalid conclusions. This is a very unlikely occurance because naturally such rare cases are widely distributed among the population. But it can occur. Luckily, this is a very obvious error and can be etected very easily. |
|
|
