Data Sampling
Representing Many by Sampling Some
Congratulations! You have landed an internship with the mayor of Statsboro, a small municipality with a population of 500. The mayor
has pledged to spend the town’s funds according to the will of the people, so she has given you the responsibility of gauging public opinion on four
policy issues.
To know for sure what the people think, you could interview everyone in town. However, you have limited time and almost no
budget, so that isn’t an option. When statisticians find themselves in this situation, they take a sample of the entire population.
If the sample is large enough and representative of the population as a whole, then the results of the sample can be used to estimate
what the results would have been if everyone were surveyed.
