Sampling error

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In statistics, sampling error is incurred when the statistical characteristics of a population are
estimated from a subset, or sample, of that population. Since the sample does not include all
members of the population, statistics on the sample, such as means and quantiles, generally
differ from the characteristics of the entire population, which are known as parameters. For
example, if one measures the height of a thousand individuals from a country of one million,
the average height of the thousand is typically not the same as the average height of all one
million people in the country. Since sampling is typically done to determine the
characteristics of a whole population, the difference between the sample and population
values is considered an error.[1] Exact measurement of sampling error is generally not feasible
since the true population values are unknown."

Contents
 1 Description
o 1.1 Random sampling