How to Minimize a Sampling Error

•••

By Carol Strider

Sampling errors are the seemingly random differences between the characteristics of
a sample population and those of the general population. For example, a study of the
attendance at a monthly meeting reveals an average rate of 70 percent. Attendance at
some meetings would certainly be lower for some than for others. The sampling error
then is that while you can count how many people attended each meeting, what
actually happens in terms of attendance at one meeting is not the same as what
happens at the next meeting, even though the underlying rules or probabilities are the
same. The keys to minimizing sampling error are multiple observations and larger
samples.

Minimize the potential for bias in the selection of the sample through random
sampling. Random sampling is not haphazard sampling but instead is a systematic
approach to selecting a sample. For example, a random sample of a population of
young offenders is generated by selecting names from a list to interview. Prior to
seeing the list, the researcher identifies that young offenders to be interviewed as
those whose names appear first, 10th, 20th, 30th, 40th and so on, on the list.
Ensure the sample is representative of the population by implementing a stratification
protocol. For example, if you studied the drinking habits of university students, you
might expect differences between fraternity students and non-fraternity students.
Splitting your sample into those two strata at the outset reduces the potential for
sampling error.

Use larger sample sizes. As the size increases, the sample gets closer to the actual
population, thereby decreasing the potential for deviations from the actual
population. For example, the average of a sample of 10 varies more than the average
of a sample of 100. Larger samples do, however, involve higher costs.

Replicate your study by taking the same measurement repeatedly, using more than
one subject or multiple groups, or by undertaking multiple studies. Replication allows
you to swamp out sampling errors.

FF Explore 3D
Quali ed consulting, complex 3D geological
exploration modeling expertise digital
mineral

References
About the Author
Photo Credits

Did you find this page helpful? 👍 👎

Related Articles

How to Calculate X-bar

How to Calculate X-bar

•••

Updated April 23, 2018 By Chris Deziel

Suppose you're a clothing manufacturer, and you want to maximize profits. One way
to do this is to determine the median height of the people in your market city or
country and make most of your clothing to fit people of that height. Because it's
impractical to measure the height of every person, you would measure the heights of
only some of the people and average the results of that sample. In statistics, this
average is the x-bar, which appears as an x with a horizontal line over it. It's a simple
arithmetic average, which means it's the sum of all the measurements divided by the
number of measurements.

TL;DR (Too Long; Didn't Read)

Calculate x-bar for a sample by adding the measurement values and dividing by
the number of measurements. In other words, x-bar is a simple arithmetic average.

Mathematic Definition
In mathematical notation, the definition of x-bar looks more sophisticated and
complex than it really is. If you have a number of measurements n, and you represent
each measurement by the letter x, you get x-bar by performing the following
operation:

x-bar = ∑x_i_/n

This simply means that you add all all the values of xi for values of i from 0 to n and
divide by the number of measurements. A familiar example demostrates how
straightforward this is:

In a series of tests throughout the school year, a student gets the following percentage
scores: 72, 55, 83, 62, 77, 80 and 87. Assuming all tests count for the same, what is the
student's average score? To get the answer you add all the scores to get 516 and you
divide by the number of tests, which is 7 to get 73.7 or, rounding up, 74 percent.

Improving the Accuracy of X-Bar

You can only calculate the true mean of a population by measuring every individual in
the population. Statisticians denote this true mean by the lowercase Greek letter mu
(µ). Because it's an approximation, x-bar doesn't necessarily equal µ, but the
approximation gets closer as you increase the sample size. Another way to increase
accuracy is to measure several samples, calculate x-bar for each sample and find the
mean of all the x-bars you calculated.

The clothing designer measuring the height of individuals would probably want to
take more than one sample and calculate x-bar for each sample. That helps avoid
anomalies. For example, a sample taken at a basketball practice isn't as likely to be
indicative of the population as a whole as a series of samples taken across different
sectors of the population. The more measurements you take when calculating x-bar,
and the more separate calculations of x-bar you are able to average into a final
number, the lower the standard deviation of the resulting mean.

References
About the Author

Science About Us

Math Accessibility Statement

Projects Terms of Use

Copyright 2019 Leaf Group Ltd. / Leaf Group Media, All Rights Reserved.
News Privacy Policy

Copyright Policy

Contact Us

AdChoices