Iwhat does in statistics what does population mean n statistics?

Answer 1

I believe this question is asking what a population is in statistics.

A "population" is simply the group from which a sample is drawn to conduct statistics. It is often wrongly assumed that "population" refers to all people, at least in the Social Sciences, or all of whatever the research is studying in other fields.

For example, suppose you wanted to know the average length of time that teenagers watch television. You would obviously not be able to ask every teenager. So you would collect data from a random sample of teenagers. Thus, your population would be teenagers.

However, some caution is necessary. If you collected only from teenagers in the United States, you could not really say that your population is all teenagers in the world. You would probably describe the population as US teenagers. In this case, then, a responsible researchers should make an effort to collect data from different states.

Expanding this, you can see how the issue becomes difficult. Some researchers maintain that if you collect only data from say, sophomores at one university (more common than you think), your population can only be all sophomores at that university. Other researchers are more liberal in expanding the definition of the population, and the debate is ongoing.

What is important, however, is that the sample reasonably reflects the population. Thus, the boundaries of the population are rarely so wide as to include "all" or "every" of anything. But they must still be wide enough that the research has some importance beyond just the sample, which is the ultimate goal of both science and statistics. Where the line is drawn is often a decision that you have to make and justify yourself in your project.