Population, Sample, Sampling distribution of the mean Among the many contenders for Dr Nic’s confusing terminology award is the term “Sampling distribution.” One problem is that it is introduced around the same time as population, distribution, sample and the normal distribution. A common confusion is between the standard error and the standard deviation. Here is how I explain it: Basic idea of inferential statistics Whenever we take a sample it will contain sampling error, which can also be described as sampling variation. No sample is a perfect representation of the population. When you calculate a sample mean, you do not […]