Populations and Sampling
YOUR NAME
MTH/231
January 14, 2013
Fahad M. Gohar

Populations and Sampling
A population is the complete collection of all the subjects needed in a study. This can be people, measurements, scores, and so on (Triola & Triola, p. 4, 2006). A population must include every possible subject needed for the study. If not, it is not a population. It can be very difficult to access every subject that is part of the population, especially if the population is very large. Then it would be wise to use sampling. A sample is a group of subjects taken from the population intended to represent the population (Triola & Triola, p. 4, 2006). The sample needs to have all the characteristics required for the survey. The sample should resemble the population. For example if the survey required all the college students at a particular college or who went to that particular college to participate, the person in charge of the survey would have a very large population. In this situation using a sample from that population, which could represent the population would be an ideal alternative. By drawing a sample from the original population would ensure the sample contained only the students that are in attendance or have attended that particular college. It would have a range of students who not only went to that college but also would have an assortment of majors and classes making your sample diverse in other aspects. The one thing they all would have in common is that they all will have attended the college.
We can take this one step further and say you not only need to survey those currently and previously enrolled but you wanted to survey those who have taken a particular class. By narrowing down to a particular class the population gets smaller. If you wanted a particular class with a particular instructor, you population shrinks