On 17 Nov 2003 08:04:15 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mike Kuehne) wrote: > Dear list, > > Maybe this is some off-topic, but I would like to enquire a question > about the handling of correlations and the results of multivariate > analysis of a complete survey (a poll of the entire population and not > just a sample). > > Without the need of Statistical inference that draws conclusions about a > population based on sample data every correlation is significant.
I believe that you have the wrong word; 'significant' does not work very well in that context. Every correlation is *known*. In the real world, very few people are interested. What people are interested in, almost always, is the use of inference to other circumstances, other times, other 'populations' in any infinite sense. The main, public use of Finite Population Correction (likely keyword, FPC) is on election eve, to predict the outcome of a close race before the final 10% has been counted. The big risk for those estimates arises because the 'sampling' (who has not been counted) is not random; a good estimate must take into account both (a) the number of votes, and (b) how they are going to fall, if that won't be random. FPC is used in animal management, I've been told, and this is an application where the use of FPC is called 'research'. Mostly, the notion of 'population' is basically the far extreme from the sort of generalization that research is concerned with. A version of FPC is used in quality control: especially, with stratified sampling. > > Could somebody recommend me basic literature or personal experience of > this topic? I will be interested to learn if you actually have a multivariate analysis with a purpose that justifies FPC, but my past experience says that you are probably doing the wrong analyses. -- Rich Ulrich, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pitt.edu/~wpilib/index.html "Taxes are the price we pay for civilization." . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . =================================================================
