Posted by Jack Boyd (33.2.105.9) on June 17, 1999 at 07:46:39:
In Reply to: Re: ??????? Figures Lie and Liars Figure posted by johnp on June 17, 1999 at 02:40:07:
Your points are well taken - sampling is a proven technique if done in a very precribed manner - it is also true that sample sizes can be relatively small and still be very predictive of the population.
Part of the prescribed manner is that all members of the population ( probably several hundred thousand clusterheads in the US - maybe as much as 1 or 2 million ) have an equal chance of being part of the sample. In our survey this is not the case.