Topic summary
Statistical sample
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Sampling (statistics).
In statistics, quality assurance, and survey methodology, sampling is the selection of a subset of individuals from within a statistical population to estimate characteristics of the whole population. The subset, called a statistical sample (or sample, for short), is meant to reflect the whole population, and statisticians attempt to collect samples that are representative of the population. When sampling, statisticians aim towards collecting an unbiased group, and to do it judiciously.