What term describes the naturally occurring discrepancy between a sample statistic and the population parameter?

• A. Parameter
• B. Sampling error
• C. Population
• D. Statistic

Answer: (B)

The naturally occurring discrepancy between a sample statistic and the population parameter is called sampling error. It happens because a sample is just a subset of the population and, by chance, may not perfectly reflect the whole group. For example, the population mean might be 50, but a random sample could yield a mean like 48 or 52. This difference in a single sample is sampling error, while averaging across many samples would bring estimates closer to the true population value. The standard error measures how large these differences tend to be from sample to sample, and as sample size grows, sampling error typically decreases due to the law of large numbers. This term specifically describes the gap between the statistic and the parameter, distinct from the population itself or the actual values of the parameter or statistic.