Population or Sample?

[Sjein]

My math teacher gave me this problem:
"Psychology Today" provided data on the consumption of beverages
including milk (M), fruit juice (F), soft drinks (S), beer (B), and bottled water (W). The following data show the results of 30 individuals who were asked to select their most frequently consumed beverage. M F S F S S S F S S B B B S B S B S B S F M W S W S B S M B.
Is the data are population or sample?
My teacher said thaf it is a population because we the task does not provide any details. But I think that it is a sample because the population was all the readers of the magazine.
Please help me solve the problem.
P.S. Cite your sources

 

[tkhunny]

1) Why does it matter?
2) Is "provide any details" in the given definition of Population vs. Sample?
3) Where are we told that the 30 who were questioned were readers of the magazine?
4) As we have made no inference from the data, no one cares. We gathered data just to gather data - a generally useless exercise.
5) If we desire to make an inference for a larger population, this it is clearly a Sample.
6) If we're just going to follow these 30 people around for 20 years, then it is clearly a Population - unless we intend to make some population inferences in 20 years.

Clear as mud.

 

[HallsofIvy]

What question was this data gathered to answer? The distinction between "population" and "sample" matters if you are asked to calculate the standard deviation. For an entire population of size N you sum the squares of the differences from the mean and divide by N, then take the square root. For a sample of size N, you divide by N-1.

So what, exactly, are you trying to do?

(You say "But I think that it is a sample because the population was all the readers of the magazine." How do you know that? Did this article say that this data was gathered to estimate the preferred drink of its subscribers and not just information about the 30 people?)