If I have a data set of one individual's running time over 10 wks, Will it be a sample or a population data?

This will be a sample, as you are observing the running time of only one individual

I feel some of these problems on population/sample are ambiguously worded. There's one about interest in out-of-state cars crossing a multi-lane toll bridge, and they sample every tenth car in one lane via a camera. The correct choice was population = all the cars in the one lane. To me, this is incorrect. The setup clearly said interested in out-of-state cars _crossing the toll bridge_. We weren't told that out-of-state traffic only uses one lane, and it would be a weird leap to infer that as well. We also weren't told there was any difference between the lanes. For all we know they only had one camera available for this and they picked a lane at random from which to sample. So it shouldn't matter from which lane or lanes they are drawing their sample, to me the sample is every tenth car in the photographed lane and the population they were after was all out-of-state traffic on the bridge. The population is the ENTIRE group we are interested in, and as phrased that means all the out-state-traffic on the whole bridge. There is nothing in the question as it is phrased to tell me that only traffic in one lane is their interest. They sampled one portion of one lane of the bridge to extrapolate to all traffic on the bridge. Where am I wrong on this?

I feel like since the camera doesn't change from lane to lane periodically, it only is taking into account the one lane as the population. If you were, for instance, taking a measurement of all the cars in that lane, there would only be a measurement of the population and not a sample. The misconception comes from the interpretation of what a sample is, it is a randomly chosen selection of a population. The question is trying to trick you into thinking that the cars on the entire bridge is the population, but the cars in the other lanes have no way of being randomly chosen, which means they are not part of the population.

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High school statistics

Course: High school statistics > Unit 5

Lesson 1: Introduction to planning a study

Identifying a sample and population

Name: Identifying a sample and population
Uploaded: 2016-11-19T23:31:08Z
Description: Identifying a sample and population

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Identifying a sample and population.

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rahel ayalew
Posted 6 years ago. Direct link to rahel ayalew's post “If I have a data set of o...”
If I have a data set of one individual's running time over 10 wks,
Will it be a sample or a population data?
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(9 votes)
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- Roger Breit
  Posted 6 years ago. Direct link to Roger Breit's post “This will be a sample, as...”
  This will be a sample, as you are observing the running time of only one individual
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  (9 votes)
Michael
Posted 3 years ago. Direct link to Michael's post “I feel some of these prob...”
I feel some of these problems on population/sample are ambiguously worded.

There's one about interest in out-of-state cars crossing a multi-lane toll bridge, and they sample every tenth car in one lane via a camera. The correct choice was population = all the cars in the one lane.

To me, this is incorrect. The setup clearly said interested in out-of-state cars crossing the toll bridge. We weren't told that out-of-state traffic only uses one lane, and it would be a weird leap to infer that as well.

We also weren't told there was any difference between the lanes. For all we know they only had one camera available for this and they picked a lane at random from which to sample. So it shouldn't matter from which lane or lanes they are drawing their sample, to me the sample is every tenth car in the photographed lane and the population they were after was all out-of-state traffic on the bridge. The population is the ENTIRE group we are interested in, and as phrased that means all the out-state-traffic on the whole bridge.

There is nothing in the question as it is phrased to tell me that only traffic in one lane is their interest. They sampled one portion of one lane of the bridge to extrapolate to all traffic on the bridge.

Where am I wrong on this?
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(7 votes)
Answer
- Jude Molique
  Posted 4 months ago. Direct link to Jude Molique's post “I feel like since the cam...”
  I feel like since the camera doesn't change from lane to lane periodically, it only is taking into account the one lane as the population. If you were, for instance, taking a measurement of all the cars in that lane, there would only be a measurement of the population and not a sample.
  
  The misconception comes from the interpretation of what a sample is, it is a randomly chosen selection of a population. The question is trying to trick you into thinking that the cars on the entire bridge is the population, but the cars in the other lanes have no way of being randomly chosen, which means they are not part of the population.
  Button navigates to signup page
  (2 votes)
♡urfavmitchell♡
Posted 9 months ago. Direct link to ♡urfavmitchell♡'s post “Tell me if I am correct. ...”
Tell me if I am correct. So Basically, The Population is the total? Then the Sample is the people getting surveyed?
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(5 votes)
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- TuputalaF
  Posted 8 months ago. Direct link to TuputalaF's post “correct but mostly”
  correct but mostly
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  (3 votes)
Vinay Sharma
Posted 2 years ago. Direct link to Vinay Sharma's post “Is a research question di...”
Is a research question different from a hypothesis?
Do we employ different strategies to gauge outcomes in both cases?
I read an article, and there was a definition of statistical analysis, and it goes like this;

Statistical analysis means investigating trends, patterns, and relationships using quantitative data. To draw valid conclusions, statistical analysis requires careful planning from the very start of the research process.
You need to specify your hypotheses and make decisions about your research design, sample size, and sampling procedure.

If you have noticed, in the second paragraph, it says that you need to specify your hypothesis first in order for the analysis to even take place. So does that mean we can't use statistical analysis with research questions?
But, it's indeed not the case as we, seldom, collect data for research questions as well, don't we? So, what's this conundrum?
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(3 votes)
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abigail
Posted 4 years ago. Direct link to abigail's post “Which of these samples is...”
Which of these samples is most representative of the entire school population?
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(1 vote)
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Mohamed Ibrahim
Posted 4 years ago. Direct link to Mohamed Ibrahim's post “What does senior mean exa...”
What does senior mean exactly in USA ? All of the students in a high school or just the final year of a high school
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(1 vote)
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ae06006
Posted 10 days ago. Direct link to ae06006's post “the population is all the...”
the population is all the same seniors
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(1 vote)
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BENJAMINL
Posted 4 years ago. Direct link to BENJAMINL's post “how do people know how to...”
how do people know how to work at their job
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(1 vote)
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Thompson, Jenna
Posted a year ago. Direct link to Thompson, Jenna 's post “A population is the entir...”
A population is the entire group that you want to draw conclusions about. A sample is the specific group that you will collect data from.
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(1 vote)
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- ae06006
  Posted 10 days ago. Direct link to ae06006's post “that is correct answer go...”
  that is correct answer good explantion
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  (1 vote)
Sandhya S.
Posted 5 years ago. Direct link to Sandhya S.'s post “I need help with this que...”
I need help with this question that may or may not relate to this video:

Jean polled a random sample from a population and calculated a sample statistic. Jean can use this statistic to draw an inference about what?

A. the corresponding sample parameter
B. the population size
C. the corresponding population statistic
D. the corresponding population parameter

It would be awesome if someone could explain this in detail to me!
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Video transcript

- [Narrator] Administrators at Riverview High School surveyed a random sample of 100 of their seniors to see how they felt about the lunch offerings at the school's cafeteria. So you have all of the seniors, I'm assuming there's more than a hundred of them, and then they sampled a hundred of them. So this is the sample. So the population is all of the seniors at the school. That's the population, all of the seniors. And they sampled a hundred of them. So the hundred seniors that the talked to, that is the sample. That is the sample. So they tell us, identify the population and the sample this setting. So let's just see which if these choices actually match up to what I just said. And like always, I encourage you to pause the video and see if you can work through it on your own. So, the population is all high school seniors in the world; the sample is all of the seniors at Riverview High. No, this is not right. We're not trying to get an indication of how all of the high school seniors in the world feel about the food at Riverview High School. We're trying to get an indication of how the seniors at Riverview High School feel about the lunch at the school's cafeteria. So they did a sample of hundred of them. So this is definitely not going to be-- let me cross this one out. The population is all students at Riverview High; the sample is all of the seniors at Riverview High. Well, they clearly didn't sample all of the seniors, they sampled a hundred of the seniors. So this isn't gonna be right either. Let's hope that the third choice is working out. The population is all seniors at Riverview High; the sample is the hundred seniors surveyed. Yep, that's exactly what we talked here. We're trying to get an indication about how all of the seniors at Riverview High feel about the food, the lunch offerings. We probably think it's impractical or the administrators feel it's impractical to talk to everyone. So, to get exactly what the population thinks. So instead they're gonna do a random sample of a hundred of them. So the sample is the hundred seniors who are actually surveyed.