What are the advantages and disadvantages of doing a census? Surely the more data the better

The advantages of doing a census are that you know about your whole population and so there is clarity about what you are trying to find out.

However, there are many disadvantages to a census. They are often expensive and time-consuming to carry out because of their size. You may not be able to access the whole population you are interested in because you don't know who they are e.g. people with a particular illness - some will not know they have it, or will have chosen not to reveal they have. You may destroy the elements of your population to find out what you want to know e.g. Is an egg rotten? Hence most of the time a sample is far more practical.

Often taking a full census will be impractical. Imagine if you want to know the mean or median mass of an adult starling in your area. Starlings flock in the thousands, so catching and weighing all of them, even a single flock, would be time and cost prohibitive, when you could get a pretty good idea by catching a hundred or so at as close to random as possible.

You're right that more data often seems better, but with a census, there are both upsides and downsides:

Advantages:

1. Gives a Complete Picture: A census gives a full snapshot of the population, which is great for understanding the entire society.
2. Better Planning: It helps governments make smarter decisions about where to put resources like schools, hospitals, and roads.

Disadvantages:

1. Cost and Time: It's really expensive and time-consuming to count everyone.
2. Accuracy: Sometimes, the data isn't perfect. People might not give correct information, or some might be missed.
3. Privacy: People might not like sharing personal details, which can affect the quality of the data.

So, while having a lot of data from a census is useful, it's not always easy or perfect.

Surely the more data the better. However, in most cases a census is impractical as it's highly expensive and time-consuming, hence we need to make sure we choose an appropriate sampling technique that takes less data into account.

You're absolutely right, the more data the better, which makes a census the most accurate type of data collection! However, logistically, it would be extremely difficult to conduct one; it would be expensive and time-consuming.

Although taking a census is better for getting the most statistically accurate results, a census requires taking data from the whole population; which is time-consuming and expensive.

Advantages - Completely representative and accurate of the entire population. Disadvantages - expensive, time-consuming, bad if testing destroys the products (e.g. ripeness of avocados)

A census observes every single member within the population.

Advantages:

A completely accurate result as every single member is observed.

Disadvantages:

It can be very long to do and expensive if there is a large number of members.

Processing the data from the census can also be very time consuming

If the process destroys the item then it cannot be used. E.g. testing batteries in a factory by testing every battery for its lifetime means that there are no batteries left.

Advantages: is the most representative of all as everyone in the entire population is used. Therefore there is little bias and chance has no effect on the data collected.

Disadvantages: It is very time consuming to collect data from every individual within the entire population and is also very expensive to do so, It is one of the reasons why in the UK there is only a census every decade.

Hope this helps!

The advantages of a census is that it is the most accurate data observation, as you have tested every member in a population. The disadvantages are that you may end up destroying or using up every thing of a population, for example, using a census to test if a phone will break if dropped from a certain height may result in all phones being destroyed, which isn’t suitable. This is why samples are taken, so that only a certain amount of the population may be adversely affected.

Advantages: The sole purpose of a census is to take every member of the population into account. This gives completely accurate results.

Disadvantages: It's a lot of data being collected so the process is time consuming but also expensive. A census would not be suitable if the testing process destroys the items. Handling lots of data is harder than if it was smaller.

Whereas it is true that more data is better, a census is very time consuming and expensive to perform. This is why samples are usually used instead.

A census entails measuring/observing every member of the population. It produces a completely accurate result, however, it does have it's disadvantages. The most obvious being that it is very time consuming and expensive to carry out. Also, in some cases it cannot be used, such as when testing process destroys the item. For example, if you're doing a test to see how long the batteries produced lasts, you would have to use each battery, and therefore render it unusable.

A census asks/tests every member of a population which of course makes the results incredibly accurate. However, this can be incredibly expensive and time consuming, making it inappropriate for most general consumer research tasks. Furthermore, if testing a product in a way that means you can no longer sell it, for example cutting open apples, a census would of course mean that there would be none left to sell!

The main advantage of a census is that you take absolutely all people into account, therefore they are usually highly reliable and accurate with limited/negligible bias. The disadvantages usually arise when the population size is fairly large, which is likely to be the case, because it takes a long time to get individual data therefore cost and time increases.