Question

A sociologist wants to know the opinions of students about online education. He obtains a list of 750 students who have completed an online course recently and mails a questionnaire to 100 of the students. The 100 recipients of the questionnaire were randomly selected. Only 41 of the questionnaire were returned. Clearly define the population and the sample in this study.

Answer 1

A population of the study is the true total number of subjects available. For example, the whole population of a country. A sample is just part of the population. For example, a survey would just choose 100 correspondents. 

So, in this problem, the population is 750 students. The sample would be 41. Even thought 100 were selected, but only 41 participated. And this will be the only ones counted in the data analysis.

Answer 2

Answer:

The population of the study is the total amount of students who have taken an online course, that is, the 750 students who are on the list, since that is the population group to which the results are going to be generalized.

The sample of the study are the 100 students that were randomly selected to answer a questionnaire about online education. Even though only 41 of them returned it, the other 59 thath did not are also part of the sample, since all one hundred of them were the ones randomly selected so the sample would be representative of the population.