Samples and Census

Advantages:

• Every member of the population is used
• Unbiased
• Gives an accurate answer

Disadvantages:

• Expensive
• Takes a long time to do
• Hard to ensure the entire population is surveyed

Advantages:

• Cheaper than a census
• Advantageous when testing items results in their destruction eg. testing the lifetime of a light bulb
• data is more readily available

Disadvantages:

• Natural variation generates uncertainty
• Bias - may not be truly representative of the population. This can occur if the person taking the sample allows personal feelings to influence their choices.