Stratified sampling - wikipedia Stratified sampling This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. ( July 2012 ) Stratified Random Sampling In statistics, stratified sampling is a method of sampling from a population. In statistical surveys, when subpopulations within an overall population vary, it is advantageous to sample each subpopulation ( stratum ) independently. Stratification is the process of dividing members of the population into homogeneous subgroups before sampling. The strata should be mutually exclusive : every element in the population must be assigned to only one stratum. The strata should also be collectively exhaustive : no population element can be excluded. Then simple random sampling or systematic sampling is applied within each stratum. The objective is to improve the precision of the sample by reducing sampling error. It can produce a weighted mean that has less variability than the arithmetic mean of a simple random sample of the population. In computational statistics, stratified sampling is a method of variance reduction when Monte Carlo methods are used to estimate population statistics from a known population. Contents 1 Example 2 Stratified sampling strategies 3 Advantages 4 Disadvantages 5 Mean and standard error 6 Sample size allocation 7 See also 8 References 9 Further reading Example Assume that we need to estimate average number of votes for each candidate in an election. Assume that country has 3 towns : Town A has 1 million factory workers, Town B has 2 million office workers and Town C has 3 million retirees. We can choose to get a random sample of size 60 over entire population but there is some chance that the random sample turns out to be not well balanced across these towns and hence is biased causing a significant error in estimation. Instead if we choose to take a random sample of 10, 20 and 30 from Town A, B and C respectively then we can produce a smaller error in estimation for the same total size of sample. Stratified sampling strategies Proportionate allocation uses a sampling fraction in each of the strata that is proportional to that of the total population. For instance, if the population consists of X total individuals, m of which are male and f female ( and where m + f = X ), then the relative size of the two samples ( x1 = m / X males, x2 = f / X females ) should reflect this proportion. Optimum allocation ( or disproportionate allocation ) - The sampling fraction of each stratum is proportionate to both the proportion ( as above ) and the standard deviation of the distribution of the variable. Larger samples are taken in the strata with the greatest variability to generate the least possible overall sampling variance. A real - world example of using stratified sampling would be for a political survey. If the respondents needed to reflect the diversity of the population, the researcher would specifically seek to include participants of various minority groups such as race or religion, based on their proportionality to the total population as mentioned above. A stratified survey could thus claim to be more representative of the population than a survey of simple random sampling or systematic sampling. Advantages The reasons to use stratified sampling rather than simple random sampling include If measurements within strata have lower standard deviation, stratification gives smaller error in estimation. For many applications, measurements become more manageable and / or cheaper when the population is grouped into strata. It is often desirable to have estimates of population parameters for groups within the population. If the population density varies greatly within a region, stratified sampling will ensure that estimates can be made with equal accuracy in different parts of the region, and that comparisons of sub-regions can be made with equal statistical power. For example, in Ontario a survey taken throughout the province might use a larger sampling fraction in the less populated north, since the disparity in population between north and south is so great that a sampling fraction based on the provincial sample as a whole might result in the collection of only a handful of data from the north. Disadvantages Stratified sampling is not useful when the population can not be exhaustively partitioned into disjoint subgroups. It would be a misapplication of the technique to make subgroups ' sample sizes proportional to the amount of data available from the subgroups, rather than scaling sample sizes to subgroup sizes ( or to their variances, if known to vary significantly -- e.g. by means of an F Test ). Data representing each subgroup are taken to be of equal importance if suspected variation among them warrants stratified sampling. If subgroup variances differ significantly and the data needs to be stratified by variance, it is not possible to simultaneously make each subgroup sample size proportional to subgroup size within the total population. For an efficient way to partition sampling resources among groups that vary in their means, variance and costs, see `` optimum allocation ''. The problem of stratified sampling in the case of unknown class priors ( ratio of subpopulations in the entire population ) can have deleterious effect on the performance of any analysis on the dataset, e.g. classification. In that regard, minimax sampling ratio can be used to make the dataset robust with respect to uncertainty in the underlying data generating process. Combining sub-strata to ensure adequate numbers can lead to Simpson 's paradox, where trends that actually exist in different groups of data disappear or even reverse when the groups are combined. Mean and standard error The mean and standard error of stratified random sampling are given by : x  ̄ = 1 N ∑ h = 1 L N h x h  ̄ ( displaystyle ( \bar ( x ) ) = ( \frac ( 1 ) ( N ) ) sum _ ( h = 1 ) ^ ( L ) N_ ( h ) ( \bar ( x_ ( h ) ) ) ) s x  ̄ 2 = ∑ h = 1 L ( N h N ) 2 ( N h − n h N h ) s h 2 n h ( displaystyle s_ ( \bar ( x ) ) ^ ( 2 ) = sum _ ( h = 1 ) ^ ( L ) left ( ( \frac ( N_ ( h ) ) ( N ) ) \right ) ^ ( 2 ) left ( ( \frac ( N_ ( h ) - n_ ( h ) ) ( N_ ( h ) ) ) \right ) ( \frac ( s_ ( h ) ^ ( 2 ) ) ( n_ ( h ) ) ) ) where, L = ( displaystyle L = ) count of strata N = ( displaystyle N = ) the sum of all stratum sizes N h = ( displaystyle N_ ( h ) = ) size of stratum h ( displaystyle h ) x h  ̄ = ( displaystyle ( \bar ( x_ ( h ) ) ) = ) sample mean of stratum h ( displaystyle h ) n h = ( displaystyle n_ ( h ) = ) number of observations in stratum h ( displaystyle h ) s h = ( displaystyle s_ ( h ) = ) sample standard deviation of stratum h ( displaystyle h ) Note that the term ( N h ( displaystyle N_ ( h ) ) − n h ( displaystyle n_ ( h ) ) ) / ( N h ( displaystyle N_ ( h ) ) ), which equals ( 1 − n h ( displaystyle n_ ( h ) ) / N h ( displaystyle N_ ( h ) ) ), is a finite population correction and N h ( displaystyle N_ ( h ) ) must be expressed in `` sample units ''. Foregoing the finite population correction gives : s x  ̄ 2 = ∑ h = 1 L ( N h N ) 2 s h 2 n h ( displaystyle s_ ( \bar ( x ) ) ^ ( 2 ) = sum _ ( h = 1 ) ^ ( L ) left ( ( \frac ( N_ ( h ) ) ( N ) ) \right ) ^ ( 2 ) ( \frac ( s_ ( h ) ^ ( 2 ) ) ( n_ ( h ) ) ) ) where the w h ( displaystyle w_ ( h ) ) = N h ( displaystyle N_ ( h ) ) / N ( displaystyle N ) is the population weight of stratum h ( displaystyle h ). Sample size allocation For proportional allocation strategy, the size of the sample in each stratum is taken in proportion to the size of the stratum. Suppose that in a company there are the following staff : male, full - time : 90 male, part - time : 18 female, full - time : 9 female, part - time : 63 total : 180 and we are asked to take a sample of 40 staff, stratified according to the above categories. The first step is to calculate the percentage of each group of the total. % male, full - time = 90 ÷ 180 = 50 % % male, part - time = 18 ÷ 180 = 10 % % female, full - time = 9 ÷ 180 = 5 % % female, part - time = 63 ÷ 180 = 35 % This tells us that of our sample of 40, 50 % ( 20 individuals ) should be male, full - time. 10 % ( 4 individuals ) should be male, part - time. 5 % ( 2 individuals ) should be female, full - time. 35 % ( 14 individuals ) should be female, part - time. Another easy way without having to calculate the percentage is to multiply each group size by the sample size and divide by the total population size ( size of entire staff ) : male, full - time = 90 × ( 40 ÷ 180 ) = 20 male, part - time = 18 × ( 40 ÷ 180 ) = 4 female, full - time = 9 × ( 40 ÷ 180 ) = 2 female, part - time = 63 × ( 40 ÷ 180 ) = 14 See also Statistics portal Opinion Poll Statistical benchmarking Stratified sample size Stratification ( clinical trials ) References Jump up ^ Botev, Z. ; Ridder, A. ( 2017 ). `` Variance Reduction ''. Wiley StatsRef : Statistics Reference Online : 1 -- -- 6. doi : 10.1002 / 9781118445112. stat07975. ^ Jump up to : `` 6.1 How to Use Stratified Sampling STAT 506 ''. onlinecourses.science.psu.edu. Retrieved 2015 - 07 - 23. ^ Jump up to : Shahrokh Esfahani, Mohammad ; Dougherty, Edward R. ( 2014 ). `` Effect of separate sampling on classification accuracy ''. Bioinformatics. 30 ( 2 ) : 242 -- 250. doi : 10.1093 / bioinformatics / btt662. PMID 24257187. Jump up ^ Hunt, Neville ; Tyrrell, Sidney ( 2001 ). `` Stratified Sampling ''. Webpage at Coventry University. Archived from the original on 13 October 2013. Retrieved 12 July 2012. Further reading Särndal, Carl - Erik ; et al. ( 2003 ). `` Stratified Sampling ''. Model Assisted Survey Sampling. New York : Springer. pp. 100 -- 109. ISBN 0 - 387 - 40620 - 4. 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Question: when should a researcher use stratified random sampling
Answer: when subpopulations within an overall population vary