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Psychology vocabulary · Research Methods and Statistics

Sample

Meaning in psychology, with examples

/ˈsɑːmpəl/nounCore term

In psychology, sample means: The group of people actually studied in research, chosen from a larger population so that the results can, ideally, be generalised to it.

In Turkish: örneklem

How it is used

Used in every method section: sample size, a representative sample, a convenience sample, a clinical sample. Researchers recruit or draw a sample, and reviewers often criticise samples that are small or made up only of students.

Example sentences

  1. The sample consisted of 240 first-year university students.

  2. With such a small sample, the study had little power to detect an effect.

Common collocations

  • sample size
  • representative sample
  • convenience sample
  • clinical sample
  • draw a sample
  • participantA person who takes part in a research study, for example by completing tasks, answering questionnaires or being interviewed.
  • random assignmentPlacing participants into the groups of a study by chance, so that each person has an equal chance of being in any group and the groups are similar at the start.
  • effect sizeA number that shows how large a difference or relationship is, independent of sample size, such as Cohen's d or a correlation coefficient.
  • statistical significanceA sign that a result would be unlikely if there were really no effect, usually judged by whether the p-value falls below a set level such as .05.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Research Methods and Statistics

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