# Finite population correction for calculating margin of error

Let's say that I have a population of 10000, and I have a sample of 300 that have responded to an online survey. Of 10000 invitations, 300 hundred have replied. Would I be able to use the finite population correction for margin of error?

Population: 10000
Sample: 300
Response: 3%

• if you have a representative sample why do you need corrections? – Dmitrij Celov Jun 22 '11 at 11:09
• It sounds like you have an intended sample size of 10000 and a 97% non-response rate. Your "population" is probably much, much greater than 10000. – whuber Jun 22 '11 at 14:40
• Perhaps my understanding of "population" is misconstrued. Essentially, I'm trying to estimate the margin of error associated with a survey I recently ran on the clients of a company. What I'd like to be able to say is something like. "X% Clients of company Y agree that Z, with a margin of error of A." – Brandon Bertelsen Jun 23 '11 at 7:20

If the population was 10000 and if you had a random sample of 300 then you could make a finite population correction. Wikipedia suggests a multiplicative factor for the standard error of $$\sqrt{\dfrac{N-n}{N-1}}$$ which with $N=10000$ and $n=300$ is about $0.985$, not something that is going to make a lot of difference.