Market research glossary
New to the market research world? Keen researcher looking to brush up on your terminology? The FieldworkHub glossary is here to help you understand common methods and concepts used across the industry, so you can gain better understanding of the tools we use that drive smarter business decisions.
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Representative sample
A subset of a larger cohort that reflects the wider characteristics of that cohort, e.g. in terms of factors such as gender, age, education, working status, income and purchasing behaviour. A representative sample may also be random, but it is not necessarily so. Choosing a representative sample minimises the risk that the sample will be biased due to known causes, whereas a random sample minimises the risk that the sample will be biased due to unknown causes.