Mel wrote:
>
> Hi there,
>
> I am trying to understand the basics of statistics and was needing a brief
> explanation of Population. To me this terms simply means the gathering of
> data values and the "work" that is involved with this. Can someone please
> correct me if I am wrong.
Yep. <grin>
The "population" is in general a rather slippery concept. It refers to
the set from which a sample has been drawn, and to which inferences
drawn from the sample are supposed to apply.
In the traditional model there is no problem. You make a list of all
the members in your population, you draw a random sample from this
"sampling frame", and you analyze it.
Unfortunately, outside industrial quality control, the intersection of
the set of populations you can list all the members of (& take a truly
random sample) and populations anybody gives a damn about the parameters
of is near-empty. So just about all samples in the real world are either
"convenience samples" from a population of interest, or randomized
samples from a population (such as the Psych 100 volunteer subject pool)
that is a surrogate for the population of actual interest (all humans).
Surprisingly, this often works quite well.
-Robert Dawson
.
.
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