List Sampling

List sampling is one of the basic ways that survey samples can be created. The basic concept of list sampling is deceptively simple. The process is to choose a subset of the elements (the sample) from a listing of all elements (the sampling frame) using a specific selection process. The selection process may have several features, for example, sampling with replacement or sampling without replacement.

In list sampling, as in other sample selection processes, issues arise about whether the sample estimate is an unbiased and reliable estimate for the characteristic or attribute in the full list of elements. Bias and reliability are measures of how well the estimator for the attribute computed using list sample data corresponds to the true value for the attribute in the ...