Population/ Sample

Population/ Sample

Population

Sampling Frame

Sample

Chadwick, A. (2017). Population/sample. In The sage encyclopedia of communication research methods (Vol. 4, pp. 1284-1286). SAGE Publications, Inc, https://doi.org/10.4135/9781483381411.n444

Population

Definition: "A population consists of all the objects or events of a certain type about which reseachers seek knowldge or information" (Chadwick, 2017) Example: adult females living in America Goal: Generalize findings back to this group because the total group would be impossible to measure.

Sample

Definition: A manageable subset of the population researchers select for observation. Example: 1000 adult females whose names were randomly selected from voter registration list Goal: Ensure that the sample is truly representative of target populationso that researchers can make generalizations.

Sampling Frame

Definition: "A set of all objects or events from which the sample is selected" (Chadwick, 2017). Example: Using census info to identify Goal: Means for choosing the particular members of the target population.