Simple random sampling

Introduction

In small populations and often in large ones, such sampling is typically done "without replacement", i.e., one deliberately avoids choosing any member of the population more than once. Although simple random sampling can be conducted with replacement instead, this is less common and would normally be described more fully as simple random sampling with replacement. Sampling done without replacement is no longer independent, but still satisfies exchangeability, hence most results of mathematical statistics still hold. Further, for a small sample from a large population, sampling without replacement is approximately the same as sampling with replacement, since the probability of choosing the same individual twice is low. Survey methodology textbooks generally consider simple random sampling without replacement as the benchmark to compute the relative efficiency of other sampling approaches.