<span>A sample is a subset of a population. It lies at the heart of survey research. It is sometimes called a ‘miniature of the population’, so the process of drawing a sample should maximise the similarity between the population under study and the sample.<br><br>In this video, educator Aneta Piekut looks at how we select the members of the population to achieve this goal.</span>

Interview with Joe Twyman from YouGov

Learn how to make sense of social statistics and economic data with this introductory course on quantitative social science from the University of Sheffield. Increasingly, we’re bombarded with all sorts of data about how society is changing: opinion poll trends, migration data, economic results, government debt levels and MPs’ expenses claims. The ability to read such information with confidence is an increasingly important skill for both modern citizens and those studying the social sciences. We’ll look at ways of cutting through the confusion to decide what numbers reveal, and when and why they (sometimes deliberately) mislead.