Applied Research and Statistics QNT561

Research and Sampling Designs

Chapter 8

1. What is sampling error? Could the value of the sampling error be zero? If it were zero, what would this mean?

Sampling error is the difference between the statistic estimated from a sample and the true population statistic. While we would expect the sampling error to not be zero, it is not impossible. For example if you were evaluating the ethnicities of a population and everyone in the population was Caucasian then taking any sample would give you the true proportion of 100% Caucasian. In other words, if the sampling error is zero then the population is uniform or you were taking a perfectly representative sample

1. List the reasons for sampling. Give an example of each reason for sampling.

A...