Define a population in statistical terms.

In statistical terms, a population encompasses the entire set of individuals or items that are of interest for a particular study or analysis. This broad definition means that the population includes every member of a specified group, such as all individuals within a certain demographic, all items produced by a factory, or any complete set of data points that the researcher wants to investigate. By defining the population in this way, researchers can conduct studies and make inferences about it through sampling, analysis, and statistical methods, eventually applying their findings to the entire population.

The other choices, while they may relate to aspects of research, do not capture the comprehensive nature of what a population is. For instance, the total number of participants in research refers specifically to a sample rather than the complete population. Meanwhile, a small group taken from a larger group describes a sample, which is only a portion of the population, and a summary of findings from a study is a report of outcomes rather than a descriptive term for a population itself.