Sociology 2206A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Sampling Frame, Sampling Error, Statistical Parameter
Document Summary
We sample because its not possible to study every person. We take a subset (our sample) of the population, and hope that subset can represent the topic population. If this small set of people can represent the topic population, then that is good we can generalize the finding of the sample to the topic population. Definition: the process of selecting a subset of cases in order to draw conclusions about the entire set. Key terms: target population/defined study population, sampling frame, sample (individual cases, coverage error, sampling error- statistics vs. parameters. We want to make a generalization based on our sample: an abstract concept. The population to which researchers would like to generalize their results: the entity about whom or which the researcher gathers information; whom or what are we gathering information from. An operational definition of the population that provides the basis for drawing a sample: a list of cases from which a sample may be selected.
