Population Vs Sample

If population is a Pizza then sample is a slice of it.

Suppose the CEC of India has announced the election date , now every news channel will try to predict the result of the election . They will start conducting the opinion polls .But do they conduct opinion polls on complete population of India and take out this inference .

The answer is NO.

They will visit cities , towns and villages , interact with a set of people and find out their opinion about the incumbent government and opposition .They will ask a set of question to these people who are in this sample and later analyze this data and present us this detail.They predict the winner of the next election.

population denotes a large group consisting of elements having at least one common feature. The term is often contrasted with the sample, which is nothing but a part of the population that is so selected to represent the entire group.

In simple terms, population means the aggregate of all elements under study having one or more common characteristic, for example, all people living in India constitutes the population.

• The population of tax payers in India.
• The population of all workers working in the factory.

By the term sample, we mean a part of population chosen at random for participation in the study. The sample so selected should be such that it represent the population in all its characteristics, and it should be free from bias.