Research was conducted to characterize patient score satisfaction distributions, and compare these across medical specialties. The results are summarized in a 2018 article published in Journal of Internet Medical Research. As part of the article, the authors include the following figure which includes histograms of the average overall patient satisfaction distributions across providers in three different specialty area groupings: medical, surgical and allied health professions. Overall patient satisfaction scores were measured on a 5 point ordinal scale with potential responses ranging in values from 1 (very unsatisfied) to 5 (very satisfied), and were averaged at the provider level. The data for the study was obtained from the Healthgrades consumer ratings website collected over multiple years, up through March 31, 2017.

Suppose you, and several others, were all independently conducting the same research asthe authors of this study (and none of you knew about the others). All of you tookrandom samples of various sizes from the same medical providerpopulation. All of you plot a histogram of the overall patient satisfaction scores in yoursample.

Each of you computes the sample standard deviation of your sample values. While these may differ in value, what common value are they all estimating?

a. The variation of observations in other random samples of the same size, taken from the same population.

b. The variation of observations in the population from which each sample is taken