Lesson 3 - Sampling Design 1 Flashcards
Define the following: variable of interest sampling units population population size sampling frame
variable of interest: the variable of interest on a specific measurement occasion
sampling units: objects on which you measure the variables of interest
population: the collection of all the elements of interest
population size: the number of elements in the population
sampling frame: a list of all the elements in a population
what is a sample
a group of elements (a subset of the population) selected in some manner from the population, size of the sample is n
random selection v. systematic selection
random: choosing the elements that will be in the sample using some procedure that depends on random chance
- allows us to use probability theory to make inferences about the population
systematic selection: choosing elements according to some pattern or system
- widely used in forestry
what are parameters? give examples
characteristics of a population
- typically denoted in greek letters
- exampled include: population standard deviation (sigma), population variance (sigma squared), population mean (mu), population total (tan)
What is a statistic? give examples
a characteristic of a sample that may be used to estimate a population parameter, its a point estimate of the corresponding parameter
- mean of y (y-bar)
- standard deviation of y (sy)
- variance of y (sy squared)
- total of y (yT)
What are interval estimates
an interval around the point estimate with a width determined so that the probability that the interval will contain the parameter of interest matches some desired level
- ex. 95% confidence interval for Uy is an interval estimate
Define bias, precision and accuracy in terms of statistics
bias: the difference between the expected value of a statistic used to estimate a parameter and that parameter
precision: the spread of a statistic, calculated from repeated samples, about its long-run means
accuracy: how close a statistics calculated from a particular sample might be to its associated parameter
- can be measured using mean squared error (MSE)
What is relative efficiency
relative efficiency (RE): the efficiency of one sampling method compared to another sampling method - ratio of variances of a given statistic obtained on the same population using an identical sample size
Why do we sample?
- considerably quicker and cheaper than a census
- information required may involve destructive measures
- sampling may be more accurate than census
what is simple random sampling
SRS: based on a selection procedure where every combination of n elements in the population has an equal chance of bein the sample
What are the steps involved in SRS
- obtain a sampling frame
- select the sampling plots
- measure the elements selected, record the measurements, and produce summaries
- always sum all the different values for y, and sum all the different squared values for y
- calculate point estimates
- sample mean
- population total
- variance of the observations (which estimates the population variance)
- standard deviation of observations (which estimates the population sd)
- square root of the variance! - standard deviation of the mean, variance of the sample mean
- calculate interval estimates
- for estimates of the mean and total
- Yt +/- t(n-1,1-a/2) x Syt
What is AE
Allowable sampling error: half the width of the widest confidence interval that you would be willing to accept
- used to determine sample size
- t-value times the standard deviation of the mean
When should SRS be used?
- population is relatively homogeneous
- a sampling frame is available
- no other information is available
What are the difficulties of SRS?
- time consuming
- does not ensure complete coverage of the population
- does not take advantage of other information that may be available
What is STRS
Stratified random sampling: when the population is not homogenous, they can be split up into different strata, each stratum is then treated as a separate sub population and sampled separately, the results are then combined using appropriate weights to obtain overall estimates for the population