A sample size of 1000 means that the results are very likely within 3% of the entire population.
If you instead survey 10,000 people, your results will very likely be within 1% of the entire population.
It’s diminishing returns. For most pollsters, an extra 2% accuracy is not worth ten times the effort.
It’s similar to coin flip math. Getting 6+ heads on 10 flips is not hard. Getting 60+ heads on 100 flips is way harder. Getting 600+ heads on 1000 flips? No way. In fact, even getting 530+ heads on 1000 flips is very unlikely
i guess I dont understand statistics then - how is a survey of 10000 people accurate within 1% of the entire population? sure, there are a lot of towns that size or smaller, but it isnt like they’re traveling there to do the survey (as it’d skew the result).
They don’t survey 10000 people in one town. They try to get a randomly chosen sample of 10000 people, or even 1000 people, across the entire United States.
If the entire United States is 50% men and 50% women, then a randomly chosen sample of 10000 will likely contain no more than 5100 men and no more than 5100 women. A sample of 1000 will likely contain no more than 530 men and no more than 530 women.
Now replace “men” and “women” with “Democrat” and “Republican”, or any other demographic. That’s how you end up with a group of people that reasonably represents the entire United States.
sample size of 1000 though. you’d think they’d be able to find tens of thousands of people
It’s a pretty typical size for political polls.
A sample size of 1000 means that the results are very likely within 3% of the entire population.
If you instead survey 10,000 people, your results will very likely be within 1% of the entire population.
It’s diminishing returns. For most pollsters, an extra 2% accuracy is not worth ten times the effort.
It’s similar to coin flip math. Getting 6+ heads on 10 flips is not hard. Getting 60+ heads on 100 flips is way harder. Getting 600+ heads on 1000 flips? No way. In fact, even getting 530+ heads on 1000 flips is very unlikely
i guess I dont understand statistics then - how is a survey of 10000 people accurate within 1% of the entire population? sure, there are a lot of towns that size or smaller, but it isnt like they’re traveling there to do the survey (as it’d skew the result).
They don’t survey 10000 people in one town. They try to get a randomly chosen sample of 10000 people, or even 1000 people, across the entire United States.
If the entire United States is 50% men and 50% women, then a randomly chosen sample of 10000 will likely contain no more than 5100 men and no more than 5100 women. A sample of 1000 will likely contain no more than 530 men and no more than 530 women.
Now replace “men” and “women” with “Democrat” and “Republican”, or any other demographic. That’s how you end up with a group of people that reasonably represents the entire United States.