Random samples and sampling distributions

Abstract

In Chapter 1 we dealt with the frequency distribution of a sample; such a set of sample data is a subset of the whole population of such data. For example, the managers of a bus company may wish to discover the average journey time of passengers on the company buses. They cannot afford the expense and time necessary to ask every passenger, but they can ask a sample of passengers to state their journey times and, from this sample, the company will try to make inferences about the whole population of journey times.