How to Calculate a Survey Oversampling Rate

Oversampling means overrepresenting a certain group in the sample taken for a survey. Statisticians may oversample deliberately, to make up for previous underrepresentation of that group. In this case, statisticians will have decided the oversampling rate in advance, and will not need to calculate the rate again. However, often the oversampling in a survey was not deliberate. In this case, we must calculate the oversampling rate to avoid skewing the survey results.

Things You'll Need

  • Data set
  • Calculator or statistical software
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Instructions

    • 1

      Make sure you have labeled clearly the group for which you want to calculate the oversampling rate. If the data are continuous (such as height or weight), set a cutoff point instead, and call all data within that cutoff area your group.

    • 2

      Calculate the proportion of that group in your sample data. To do this, divide the number of data points belonging to that group by the total number of data points. The result will be a number from 0 to 1.

    • 3

      Find the proportion of that group in the population for which you wish to generalize the data in the same way. You may need to gather some demographic statistics first if you are not familiar with the population. This proportion will also be a number between 0 and 1.

    • 4

      Divide the sample proportion of that group by the population proportion of that group. This number is the oversampling rate.

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