Sampling Pool

Sampling pool is a survey operations term, one that statisticians sometimes refer to as the designated sample size, which was proposed by Paul J. Lavrakas in the 1980s to refer to the set of elements selected from a sampling frame that may or may not all be used in completing data collection for a given survey project. The value of using this term is to be able to have a unique term to differentiate the sampling pool that a researcher starts with from the final sample (i.e. the final sample size) the researcher finishes with. Traditionally, survey researchers have used the word sample to refer to both the final number of completed interviewers a survey is striving to attain and the number of elements used ...