Sarah Courville

Taylor
4A
16 December 2013
Chapter 12 Notes: Sample Surveys

IDEA 1: Examine a Part of the Whole
Draw a sample. We want to know about whole population but settle for sample, a smaller group
of individuals of the population.

Sample surveys are designed to ask questions of a small group in the hope of learning
something about the population in its entirety.

Bias is prevalent when sampling methods over/underemphasize characteristics of the population.
Modern surveys choose samples by selecting individuals at random to represent the population.
Voluntary response bias: a large group of individuals is invited to respond, all who do
respond are counted (internet polls)
- geared towards those who have strong enough opinions on the subject to respond
- sample is not representative, even though all individuals in a population were
invited to respond
- invalidates survey
Convenience sampling: individuals included are only those who are convenient to sample
Undercoverage: some portion of the population is not sampled at all or had a smaller
representation in the sample than it has in the population
Nonresponse bias: no survey succeeds in getting responses from everyonethose who
dont respond may differ from those who do, and they may differ on the variable the
survey is trying to study
Response bias: anything in the survey design that influences the responses

*THERE IS NO WAY TO RECOVER FROM A BIASED SAMPING METHOD OR A SURVEY THAT ASKS BIASED
QUESTIONS!


IDEA 2: Randomize
Randomizing protects from influences of the population and makes sure that a sample looks
averagely like the entire population

IDEA 3: Sample Size
When choosing how big a sample needs to be in order to be considered representative of the
population at hand, the number of individuals in the sample is more important than the fraction
of the population.
Sample size is more important than percent of the population.

Censuses
Sampling an entire population is known as a census.
- difficult to locate all the components of the population
- populations rarely stand still

Populations and Parameters
Population parameters are parameters used in a model for a population.
-
1
(beta)= slope parameter in linear model for population
- = mean parameter of a population model
Statistics drawn from the sample need to reflect corresponding parameters in order to be
considered representative.
Sample statistics are any summaries found from the data.

Simple Random Samples
A sample drawn where each combination of people has an equal chance of being selected is a
simple random sample (SRS).
The sampling frame is a list of individuals from which a sample is drawn. It can be numbered
and then matched up by a random number table/generator
Samples drawn at random generally differ from one another. The differences from sample to
sample is called sampling variability.

Stratified Sampling
All statistical sampling designs have in common that the idea of chance is used to select a
sample.
In stratified random sampling, the population is first split into homogeneous groups called
strata, and then the data is selected within each stratum before the results are combined.
- reduces sampling variability

Cluster and Multistage Sampling
Splitting the population into representative clusters can make sampling more practical. Then one
or a few clusters could be selected at random, and a census could be performed within each of
them (cluster sampling). Sampling that combines several methods is called multistage
sampling (stratifying, clustering, and then SRSing all in one sample).
*Stratifying ensures that the sample represents different groups in the population, and is sampled randomly within each stratum;
internally homogenous. Clustering makes sampling more practical/affordable, resembles entire population, and internally
heterogeneous.

Systematic Samples
You might survey every 10
th
person on an alphabetical list of students, but to ensure that it is
random, the individual you start the systematic selection from must be randomly selected. When
the order of the list is not associated in any way with the responses sought, systematic sampling
can give a representative sample.

A pilot is a trial run of a survey that someone eventually plans to give to a larger group, using a
draft of the survey questions administered to a small sample drawn from the same sampling
frame they intend to use. (ex: a pilot episode of a television show is the first trial episode.)