Population

Definition

The complete group of people, objects or results about which a statistical conclusion is required.

Used by AQA, Edexcel and OCR

Specification S1, S5 · Paper 1, Paper 2, Paper 3

The complete group about which information is required.
A population is the complete group that a statistical question concerns. It does not have to mean people: a population could be every light bulb made during a production run, every tree in a forest or every journey made on a particular bus route.
Revise: Population Inference
The complete group of people, objects or results about which information is wanted.
Revise: Describing Populations

1
When estimating a number in a population, use the sample proportion: $\dfrac{\text{number with the property in the sample}}{\text{sample size}}\times\text{population size}$ .

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Specification S1, S5 · Paper 1, Paper 2, Paper 3

The population is the entire group an investigation is about. It need not be a group of people: it might be every light bulb in a production run, every tree in a woodland or every journey made on a bus route during a month.
Revise: Populations and Samples
The complete set of people or items being studied.
Revise: Population Description

Specification 12.01a, 12.03a · Paper 1 (Foundation), Paper 2 (Foundation), Paper 3 (Foundation), Paper 4 (Higher), Paper 5 (Higher), Paper 6 (Higher)

The complete group of people or items about which a study is intended to draw conclusions.
The population is the entire group that the question concerns; it is not necessarily a population of people. If a manufacturer wants to estimate the lifetime of a particular batch of bulbs, every bulb in that batch is the population. If a head teacher wants to know what pupils at one school think of its canteen, the population is all pupils at that school.
Revise: Populations and Samples
The complete group of people, objects or measurements that a statistical investigation concerns.
Revise: Quartiles, Box Plots and Comparing Populations

population size

Describe the answer as an estimate, not an exact value, and state that it assumes the sample is representative of the population.

For an estimated number, calculate the sample proportion and multiply it by the population size.