A survey can only be truly valuable when its reliable and representative for your

business. However, determining the ideal survey sample size and population can
prove tricky. In other words, who will you be surveying and how many people? No
idea? No worries. Were here to help!

Say youre a market research manager at a furniture company and you are planning to
launch a new furniture line by the end of 2016. However, before you launch the new line
you wish to conduct an online survey on whether your line Fall 2016 is more or less
likely to be a hit or miss on the European Union (EU) market. So far, so good. Yet, the
following question will almost instantly arise: What is the population that I would like to
survey?. Or, who do you need to survey to gain valuable insights in the success of
your new furniture line? In this case the answer is rather straightforward. Assuming that
you are launching the new line on the European market, that minors do not buy furniture
and that your furniture is reasonably priced, your population consists of all adults in the
EU.

What is the survey sample size?

For obvious reasons it is impossible to survey those (roughly) 400 million adults in the
EU. A sample of adults living in the EU offers the solution for this issue. A sample is a
selection of respondents chosen in such a way that they represent the total population
as good as possible. However, instantly a new question comes to the forefront: How
many people should my sample consist of?. Using a correct survey sample size is
crucial for your research. After all, a sample that is too big will lead to the waste of
precious resources such as time and money, while a sample that is too small will not
allow you to gain reliable insights.

So, how large should your sample be? Should you survey 1%, 5%, 10%, of the adult
citizens in the EU? Well, this depends largely on how accurate you want your survey
data to be. In other words, how closely you want your results to match those of the
entire population. There are two measures that affect the accurateness of the data.

First of all there is the margin of error (or confidence intervals). In short, this is
the positive and negative deviation you allow on your survey results for the
sample. Or, in other words, the deviation between the opinions of your
respondents and the opinion of the entire population. An example will shed some
light on this statistical explanation. Suppose you set your margin of error on 5%.
If lets hope so! 90% of your survey respondents like the Fall 2016 line, a 5%
margin of error means that you can be sure that between 85% (90%-5) and 95%
(90%+5) of the entire population actually likes the Fall 2016 line.
Second there is the confidence level. This tells you how often the percentage of
the population that likes the Fall 2016 line actually lies within the boundaries of
the margin of error. Or, following on our previous example, it tells you how sure
you can be that between 85% and 95% of the population likes the Fall
2016 campaign. Suppose you chose the 95% confidence level which is pretty
 much the standard in quantitative research1 then in 95% of the time between
85% and 95% of the population likes the Fall 2016 line2.

How many respondents does your survey require?

Once you have decided how accurate you want your sample data to be, you can start
calculating how many respondents (people who have completely filled in the survey or
completes as we call them at CheckMarket) you actually need.

Below you find an indicative table on how to calculate your number of completes.
Remember that your population consist of approximately 400 million adults in the EU.
As a consequence, the appropriate number of completes will be found on the last row of
the table below. Depending on the confidence level and the margin of error, the
number of completes will vary. As we chose a margin of error of 5% and a confidence
level of 95% for our Fall 2016campaign, you need approximately 400 completes (it is
advisable to round to the nearest hundred) for your sample.

Alternatively, on the CheckMarket website, you find an easy sample size calculator to
calculate the number of completes

What about response rate?

Before you start sending out your survey to 400 respondents, remember there is such a
thing as response rate. Response rate is the ratio of respondents that fill in the
questionnaire they received compared to the total number of surveys you send out.
For instance, if you send out your survey to 400 people and you receive 200 filled in
surveys, your response rate is 50%.
For an online survey, conventionally, a response rate of 20% is considered as a
good response rate, while a 30% response rate is considered to be really really good.
As we calculated that we need 400 completes, this means that you will definitely have to
send the survey to more than 400 people in order to reach those 400 completes.
Obviously, you cannot predict beforehand what response rate you will achieve.
However, assuming that your survey will achieve a response rate of 20%, we divide the
objective of 400 completes by a response rate of 20%. As a consequence, you will have
to send your survey to approximately 2.000 adults in the EU.

1 In some quantitative research, stricter confidence levels are used (e.g. the 99%
confidence level)
2 To put it more precisely: 95% of the samples you pull from the population.

COMMENTS:

onyi - May, 2017reply

If my population size is 2000 and there are 70 items on my research instrument.
what will my sample size be?

Maarten Marijnissen - May, 2017reply

Hi,
You can calculate your sample size using our online calculator.
For a population of 2,000 with a 95% confidence level and a 5% margin of error your
sample size will be 323.
Good luck with your research!

Richard Ayandele - April, 2017reply

Hi,
I have a population of 116,681. What will be my sample size.
Kindly avail me the formula and the step by step of how to arrive at the sample size.
Thanks
Maarten Marijnissen - April, 2017reply
Hi Richard,
Your required sample size will be 383 for your population with a 5% margin of error
and a 95% confidence level.
Heres the formula:
SS = (Z-score) * p*(1-p) / (margin of error)
SS = (1.96) * 0.5*(1-0.5) / (0.05)
SS = 3.8416 * 0,25 / 0.0025
SS = 384.16
(Z-score is 1.96 for a 95% confidence level)
Then you need to adjust it to your specific population.
SSadjusted = (SS) / 1 + [(SS 1) / population]
Good luck with your research!

Richard Ayandele - April, 2017

Thank you very much for the response.

Robert - April, 2017

Maarten,
Does this calculation change for attribute samples? I have a population of 2800 and I
want to know if anything in the population passes or fails without sampling the
entire population. What would my sample size need to be for a one-tailed test at a
99% confidence level and 2% margin of error?
Thank you

Maarten Marijnissen - April, 2017

Hi Robert,
 We looked it up for you. The calculation doesnt change for those kind of samples.
Your ideal sample size for a population of 2800 with a 2% margin of error and a 99%
confidence level would be 1672.
You can calculate it using our online sample size calculator.

chacha matoka - April, 2017reply

Hi
I have population 2,872 . category A= 42, category B=99, category C=222, Category
D = 516, category E = 1,549 and category F = 444.
1. What is the sample size
2. should I calculate sample for each category or just one single sample to the
population?

Maarten Marijnissen - April, 2017reply

Hi,
If you want to compare these categories, you should calculate representative sample
sizes for each category.
You can do this using our online calculator.
Good luck!

Ritesh - March, 2017reply

Hy
I have being doing research work for commercial banks
I have a population size of ;28
and i need to calculate sample size with such small population. How should i
conduct?
Maarten Marijnissen - March, 2017reply
Hi Ritesh,
Sample sizes for small populations are conducted the same way large populations
are conducted.
If your population is that small, its best to invite all of them to complete your survey.
Your ideal sample size, calculated with our sample size calculator, is 27.
Good luck with your research!

Ritesh - March, 2017

Thank you so much Mr Marteen

Ali Iftikhar - March, 2017

Hi Maarten:
I am working on my thesis proposal and survey sample size. I am evaluating three
academic buildings, and determining the total population of each building right now.
Population of one building would be around 1200. I was thinking 30% of the total
population which is 360 and that seems really high given that its not an online
survey, and respondents are students.
360 x 3
Please let me know what you think
Thanks,

Maarten Marijnissen - March, 2017

Hi Ali,
If you get 360 responses per building the margin of error for a 95% confidence level
will be below 5%, which is great.
For your total population the margin of error will be 2.5%.
You can calculate this yourself when your responses are in using our online
calculator.
This is definitely a sample size you can work with.
Good luck with your research!
 Maarten Marijnissen - March, 2017
Hi Ali,
If you get 360 responses per building the margin of error for a 95% confidence level
will be below 5%, which is great.
For your total population the margin of error will be 2.5%.
You can calculate this yourself when your responses are in using our online
calculator.
This is definitely a sample size you can work with.
Good luck with your research!

Mark - March, 2017reply

Hi
Im glad that you guys are there to help for our researches.
So, I have population of 353,534 and its says in the sample size calculator that the
required sample size is 384 with a margin of error of 5% and a confidence level of
95%. I am just wondering how the calculator resulted to a 384 sample size. May I
know the step by step process so I could show my professor how I got such sample
size? and what is the name of the formula and the author of such. Thank you. Hope
you could reply the soonest!

Maarten Marijnissen - March, 2017reply

Hi Mark,
Were happy to help! :)
The formula is by Cochran and this is the calculation:
The first step is to calculate the sample size for infinite populations.
SS = (Z-score) * p*(1-p) / (margin of error)
SS = (1.96) * 0.5*(1-0.5) / (0.05)
SS = 3.8416 * 0,25 / 0.0025
SS = 384.16
(Z-score is 1.96 for a 95% confidence level)
 Then you need to adjust it to your specific population.
SSadjusted = (SS) / 1 + [(SS 1) / population]
SSadjusted = 384.16 / 1 + ((384.16 1) / 353,534)
SSadjusted = 384.16 / 1.001084
SSadjusted = 383.74 => 384
Good luck with your research!

How to Determine Sample Size,

Determining Sample Size
In order to prove that a process has been improved, you must measure the process capability before and after
improvements are implemented. This allows you to quantify the process improvement (e.g., defect reduction or
productivity increase) and translate the effects into an estimated financial result something business leaders can
understand and appreciate. If data is not readily available for the process, how many members of the population
should be selected to ensure that the population is properly represented? If data has been collected, how do you
determine if you have enough data?

Determining sample size is a very important issue because samples that are too large may waste time, resources
and money, while samples that are too small may lead to inaccurate results. In many cases, we can easily determine
the minimum sample size needed to estimate a process parameter, such as the population mean .

When sample data is collected and the sample mean is calculated, that sample mean is typically different from the
population mean . This difference between the sample and population means can be thought of as an error. The

margin of error is the maximum difference between the observed sample mean and the true value of the
population mean :

where:

is known as the critical value, the positive value that is at the vertical boundary for the area of in the
right tail of the standard normal distribution.

is the population standard deviation.

is the sample size.

Rearranging this formula, we can solve for the sample size necessary to produce results accurate to a specified
confidence and margin of error.

This formula can be used when you know and want to determine the sample size necessary to establish, with a

confidence of , the mean value to within . You can still use this formula if you dont know your
population standard deviation and you have a small sample size. Although its unlikely that you know when the
population mean is not known, you may be able to determine from a similar process or from a pilot test/simulation.

Lets put all this statistical mumbo-jumbo to work. Take for example that we would like to start an Internet service
provider (ISP) and need to estimate the average Internet usage of households in one week for our business plan and
model.

Sample Size Calculation Example

Problem
We would like to start an ISP and need to estimate the average Internet usage of households in one week for our
business plan and model. How many households must we randomly select to be 95 percent sure that the sample
mean is within 1 minute of the population mean . Assume that a previous survey of household usage has
shown = 6.95 minutes.
Solution
We are solving for the sample size .
A 95% degree confidence corresponds to = 0.05. Each of the shaded tails in the following figure has an area

of = 0.025. The region to the left of and to the right of = 0 is 0.5 0.025, or 0.475. In the table of the
standard normal ( ) distribution, an area of 0.475 corresponds to a value of 1.96. The critical value is

therefore = 1.96.

The margin of error = 1 and the standard deviation = 6.95. Using the formula for sample size, we can
calculate :
So we will need to sample at least 186 (rounded up) randomly selected households. With this sample we will be 95

percent confident that the sample mean will be within 1 minute of the true population of Internet usage.

This formula can be used when you know and want to determine the sample size necessary to establish, with a

confidence of , the mean value to within . You can still use this formula if you dont know your
population standard deviation and you have a small sample size. Although it is unlikely that you know when
the population mean is not known, you may be able to determine from a similar process or from a pilot
test/simulation.