26.2 Populations and samples

Deshakalyan Chowdhury/Agence France-Presse – Getty Images

• Population – a collection of all possible measurements that could be used to address a hypothesis
  • Example: registered voters in the United States
• Sample – a subset of a population that is analyzed statistically
  • Example: Pole of a 1000 registered voters
• Statistical inference – drawing conclusions about the population from the sample.
  • Republicans are likely to re-take the white house in the 2016 election