Statistical population

A statistical population is a set of entities concerning which statistical inferences are to be drawn, often based on a random sample taken from the population. In statistics, the population is defined as the complete set of items that share at least one property of interest. It is the total aggregation of elements from which samples can be drawn to make inferences about certain characteristics.

Definition

A statistical population can be a group of existing objects (e.g., all the trees in a forest), all possible outcomes of a process (e.g., all possible outcomes of rolling a die), or even an infinite population in theoretical statistics. The population is not necessarily fixed and can change over time.

Characteristics

Each member of a statistical population does not need to be a person; it can be an event, object, or other definable entity. The only requirement is that each member of the population includes all the features of interest that a researcher is studying.

Sampling

In practice, studying an entire population is often impractical or impossible, so sampling is used to select a representative subset of the population for analysis. The quality of the inferences made from a sample depends largely on the representativeness of the sample, the sampling method used, and the size of the sample.

Importance in Statistics

Understanding the concept of a population is crucial in statistics as it forms the basis for statistical analysis. The population defines the scope of the study and influences the choice of statistical methods and techniques used in the analysis.

See also

• Sample (statistics)
• Sampling (statistics)
• Demographic analysis
• Census