ABSTRACT
This chapter describes probability and sampling and estimation. It discusses the importance of probability in statistics, defines probability in a conceptual and computational sense, and also discusses the notion of intuition versus probability. The chapter introduces simple random sampling, which is a commonly used type of sampling. It is also assumed for many inferential statistics, as it is the only sampling procedure that directly allows generalizations to be made from the sample to the population. There are two specific types of simple random sampling. The first observation is selected from the population into the sample, and that observation is then replaced back into the population. The second observation is selected and then replaced in the population. Simple random sampling without replacement is conducted in a similar fashion except that once an observation is selected for inclusion in the sample, it is not replaced and cannot be selected a second time.
