Might seem like i'm being pigheieded but i'm not meaning to be, BUT
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Originally Posted by endless psych  With respect your objection is meaningless in terms of statistics. The size of a sample depends on the size of a population. The closer to the size of the population the sample the more powerful any statistical analysis is. Thus an analysis run on the entire population of results is the most powerful analysis you can do. Thus the one in two hundred change is valid and is statistically significant. |
The fact that the sample size=the whole population (aside from the fact that for some reason the statisticians never included the "spoiled ballots" as another candidate which would have increased the sample size 20%) doesn't really matter with this type of analysis does it? Its to do with the amount of actual results (in this case only 116) - if they had smaller constituencies for exaple we would have more results and the test of whether the last digit is "random enough" would gain weight.
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The rule isn't that an ever increasing absolute number makes a result more valid, or significant, but that a sample size close to the population, or one that increases relative to the size of the population becomes more valid.
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I would think that WAS the rule in this type of analysis - that programme that runs the "monty hall problem" comes to mind, the more times you simulate the choice the more you believe the outcome.
