Definition Full population survey

In a full population survey, all individuals of a population (e.g., the entire student body of a university) are included in a study in the form of a survey or direct questioning. The advantage of a full population survey is that the population can be split and sorted according to various criteria, because the data set is complete and every person's data is included.

Usually, full population surveys are only conducted for small populations because a complete coverage is often impossible. A special form of a full population survey is a population census, which records information about all members of a population. 

Please note that the definitions in our statistics encyclopedia are simplified explanations of terms. Our goal is to make the definitions accessible for a broad audience; thus it is possible that some definitions do not adhere entirely to scientific standards.