Doesn the size of the target population affect confidence in the estimates?
The size of the target population theoretically affects the precision of the estimates. For most sample surveys, however, the effect is negligible because the sampled fraction of the target population is so small. When the sampled fraction is small, the size of the sample rather than the size of the target population determines the precision of the estimate. Polling 1000 people in the state of Rhode Island, for example, would yield as precise an estimate as polling 1000 people in the state of Texas, or the nation as a whole. In these cases, a very small proportion of the total population is polled. If the sample includes a large proportion of the population, in contrast, the accuracy of the estimate is improved. For instance, if a local town has a population of 1400 people, then a sample of 1200 people would produce a substantially more accurate estimate than a sample of 1200 people from a population of 100 million. As the size of the sample approaches the size of the population, stati
