week 2 reading, chapter 7 - sampling error

Question 1

define sampling error

Answer 1

variation which arises whenever we observe a sample instead of the whole population
also referred to as sampling variation

Question 2

define sampling distribution

Answer 2

the type of distribution we expect a particular estimate to follow

Question 3

define sample size

Answer 3

often referred to as n

the number of observations in a sample

Question 4

how can we reduce sampling error

Answer 4

increase the sample size

Question 5

define standard error

Answer 5

the standard error of an estimate is the standard deviation of its sampling distribution
- it is a standard deviation - so is the measure of the spread or dispersion of a distribution