Okuzeka
Statistics vocabulary · Sampling

Sampling error

Meaning in statistics, with examples

nounCommon term

In statistics, sampling error means: The natural difference between a value calculated from a sample and the true population value, which arises simply because only part of the population was studied.

In Turkish: örnekleme hatası

How it is used

It is random, not a mistake, and it gets smaller as the sample size increases; the standard error and margin of error quantify it. Errors from poor questions, bad sampling frames or nonresponse are called non-sampling errors and do not shrink with a bigger sample.

Example sentences

  1. A two-point difference between the polls is well within sampling error.

  2. A bigger sample reduces sampling error, but it cannot fix a badly worded question.

Common collocations

  • within sampling error
  • reduce sampling error
  • non-sampling error
  • random sampling error
  • margin of errorThe amount added to and subtracted from an estimate to form a confidence interval, showing how far the sample result may differ from the true population value.
  • standard errorThe standard deviation of an estimate, such as a sample mean, across repeated samples; it shows how precise the estimate is likely to be.
  • sample sizeThe number of observations or participants included in a study, usually written as n (or N for the total).
  • biasA systematic error that pushes results in one direction, so that estimates are consistently too high or too low rather than just randomly off.
  • sampling distributionThe distribution of a statistic, such as the sample mean, that you would get if you took many samples of the same size from the same population.

More terms: Sampling

Practise with graded reading

Reading at the right level is the fastest way to make new words stick. Pick free English books by level: