Question

Sandy takes a random sample of 10 of her classmates and determines their average height. She takes a second random sample of 10 and obtains a different value. This is an example of _______.

Answer 1

If different random samples are drawn from the same population the composition of the samples are generally different.

A statistic is nothing but a function of sample observations. So if composition of samples are different then naturally the value of the statistic is also likely to be different. These differences in the values of a statistic are called sampling fluctuations.

Here composition of random sample of 10 what she obtained is different from that one taken by Sandy . Composition being different ,value of average height (which is the statistic here) is also different.

Hence this is an example of sampling fluctuation.