To make unbiased estimates, your sample should ideally be representative of your population and/or randomly selected. Using inferential statistics, you can estimate population parameters from sample statistics. Greek letters and capital letters usually refer to populations, whereas Latin letters and lower-case letters refer to samples. Mean screen time of all high school students in India.ĭifferent symbols are used for statistics versus parameters to show whether a sample or a population is being referred to. Mean screen time of 3000 high school students in India. Standard deviation of weights of all avocados in the region. Standard deviation of weights of avocados from one farm. Median income of all college students in Massachusetts. Median income of 850 college students in Boston and Wellesley. Proportion of all US residents that support the death penalty. Proportion of 2000 randomly sampled participants that support the death penalty. Examples of statistics vs parameters Sample statistic Statistics and parameters are numbers that summarize any measurable characteristic of a sample or a population.įor categorical variables (e.g., political affiliation), the most common statistic or parameter is a proportion.įor numerical variables (e.g., height), the mean or standard deviation are commonly reported statistics or parameters. ![]() What kinds of numbers are parameters and statistics? Instead, you use random sampling to survey a sample of 2000 participants. Since the population you’re interested in is all US residents, it’s not practical to collect data from the whole population. Population vs sampleYou want to identify the level of support for the death penalty among US residents. The sample is the group of elements that you will actually collect data from. This may be a group of people (e.g., all adults in the US or all employees of a company), but it can also mean a group containing other kinds of elements: objects, events, organizations, countries, species, organisms, etc.Ī sample is a smaller group taken from the population. In research, a population is the entire group that you’re interested in studying.
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