Census
Census: data collection from every member of a defined population rather than a sample, giving an exact figure but often at high cost and time. Contrasted with sampling, which trades some precision for speed.
See it move
Surveying all 320 employees of a company, a census, takes 320 × 12 minutes, or 64 hours of interviewer time, but produces the exact company-wide figure with no sampling error. Surveying just 40 employees instead takes only 8 hours, far cheaper, but yields only an estimate.
Check yourself
A logistics company has exactly 1,200 delivery vehicles in its own fleet. Its maintenance manager inspects all 1,200 vehicles to compute the fleet's true average mileage. A separate industry research team estimates the same average by surveying 80 randomly chosen vehicles drawn from a national population of 30,000 delivery vehicles across the whole industry. Which statement correctly classifies the maintenance manager's exercise?