Tiny example
Ask ten people
If you ask ten friends about a school issue, is that enough to know what the whole school thinks?
Maybe not. The way the sample is chosen affects the conclusion.
Sampling
Using part of a population to learn about the whole.
A sample is a smaller group we use to make a judgement about a bigger group. The sample must be chosen carefully if we want the judgement to be useful.
Why it matters
Sampling sits behind statistics, surveys, experiments, machine learning and claims made from data.
Things to watch for
- Treating a biased sample as if it represents everyone.
- Forgetting that samples vary by chance.
- Trusting a percentage without asking how the data was collected.
Where it connects
samplingstatisticsdata