In: Statistics and Probability
What are the factors that determine the sample size? How is sample size calculated for estimating the population mean? Provide examples.
Three factors are used in the sample size calculation and thus, determine the sample size for simple random samples. These factors are: 1) the margin of error, 2) the confidence level, and 3) the proportion (or percentage) of the sample that will chose a given answer to a survey question.
Suppose it is of interest to estimate the population mean, ?, for a quantitative variable. Data collected from a simple random sample can be used to compute the sample mean, x?, where the value of x? provides a point estimate of ?.When the sample mean is used as a point estimate of the population mean, some error can be expected owing to the fact that a sample, or subset of the population, is used to compute the point estimate. The absolute value of the difference between the sample mean, x?, and the population mean, ?, written |x? ? ?|, is called the sampling error.