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.
[Please be aware that a word may have different nuances, or even a different meaning, according to context.]« Back to Index
