When small data beats big data

Small data is sometimes preferable to big data. A high quality small sample can produce superior inferences to a low quality large sample. Data has acquisition, computation and privacy costs which require costs to be balanced against benefits. Statistical inference works well on small data but not s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inStatistics & probability letters Vol. 136; pp. 142 - 145
Main Authors Faraway, Julian J., Augustin, Nicole H.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Elsevier B.V 01.05.2018
Subjects
Big data
Small data
Small data
Big data
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Summary:Small data is sometimes preferable to big data. A high quality small sample can produce superior inferences to a low quality large sample. Data has acquisition, computation and privacy costs which require costs to be balanced against benefits. Statistical inference works well on small data but not so well on large data. Sometimes aggregation into small datasets is better than large individual-level data. Small data is a better starting point for teaching of Statistics.
ISSN:0167-7152
1879-2103
DOI:10.1016/j.spl.2018.02.031