Any entire collection of animals, plants, people, or things from which we may draw a sample and collect data. It is the entire group we are interested in, which we wish to describe or draw conclusions about. In order to make any generalizations about a population, a sample, that is meant to be representative of the population, is often studied. For each population there are many possible samples. A sample statistic gives information about a corresponding population parameter. For example, the sample mean for a set of data would give information about the overall population mean.