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Designing a Sampling Program 2.1 Introduction 2.2 the Necessity of a Good Sampling Design 2.3 What Is a Population and What Is a Sample?
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Abstract | The first and most important step of any environmental study is to design the sampling program. This chapter discusses the basics of designing a sampling program, and shows you how to use EnvStats to help you determine required sample sizes. For a more in-depth discussion of sampling design and sample size calculation, see Millard et al. (2014). A study is only as good as the data upon which it is based. No amount of advanced, cutting-edge statistical theory and techniques can rescue a study that has produced poor quality data, not enough data, or data irrelevant to the question it was meant to answer. From the very start of an environmental study, there must be a constant dialog between the data producers (field and lab personnel, data coders, etc.), the data users (scientists and statisticians), and the ultimate decision maker (the person for whom the study was instigated in the first place). All persons involved in the study must have a clear understanding of the study objectives and the limitations associated with the chosen physical sampling and analytical (measurement) techniques before anyone can make any sense of the resulting data. In everyday language, the word " population " refers to all the people or organisms contained within a specific country, area, region, etc. When we talk about the population of the United States, we usually mean something like " the total number of people who currently reside in the U.S. " In the field of statistics, however, the term population is defined operationally by the question we ask: it is the entire collection of measurements about which we want to make a statement (Zar 2010; Berthouex and Brown 2002; Gilbert 1987). For example, if the question is " What is the concentration of dissolved oxygen r refined until a suitable population can be defined: " What is the average concentration of dissolved oxygen in a particular section of a stream at a depth of 0.5 m over a particular 3-day period? " In this case, the population is the set of all possible measurements of dissolved oxygen in in this stream? " , the question must be furthe |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://www.springer.com/cda/content/document/cda_downloaddocument/9781461484554-c1.pdf?SGWID=0-0-45-1421320-p175321853 |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
