population

Categories: Site glossary

The population is the collective that is of interest in a research study. The population may be small (biology teachers in one school) or large (all university students in France) so in research it is often necessary to sample a large population when it is not realistic to collect data from the full population.

Read about Populations in research

Read about Sampling

A population does not need to mean people. We might sample from the 'population' of lectures in a degree course, or school physics examination questions.

Author: Keith

Former school and college science teacher, teacher educator, research supervisor, and research methods lecturer. Emeritus Professor of Science Education at the University of Cambridge.