In statistics, a sample is a subject chosen from a population for investigation; a random sample is one chosen by a method involving an unpredictable component. Random sampling can also refer to taking a number of independent observations from the same probability distribution, without involving any real population. The sample usually is not a representative of the population of people from which it was drawn— this random variation in the results is termed as sampling error. In the case of random samples, mathematical theory is available to assess the sampling error. Thus, estimates obtained from random samples can be accompanied by measures of the uncertainty associated with the estimate. This can take the form of a standard error, or if the sample is large enough for the central limit theorem to take effect, confidence intervals may be calculated.
Read more about Random Sample: Types of Random Sample, Methods of Producing Random Samples
Famous quotes containing the words random and/or sample:
“poor Felix Randal;
How far from then forethought of, all thy more boisterous years,
When thou at the random grim forge, powerful amidst peers,
Didst fettle for the great gray drayhorse his bright and battering
sandal!”
—Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)
“All that a city will ever allow you is an angle on it—an oblique, indirect sample of what it contains, or what passes through it; a point of view.”
—Peter Conrad (b. 1948)