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In a simple random sample, each member of a population is equally likely to be selected as part of the sample. Consider an example where a researcher performs the following procedure. |c| There are $20$ people, each assigned a unique number, who are surveyed. Of those $20$ people, $4$ need to be randomly selected as a sample. The researcher writes each unique number on a paper and places them in a bag.The researcher then blindly selects $4$ papers out of the bag.
The researcher's way of choosing a sample means that each participant is equally likely to be selected as part of the sample. The following applet shows a generated example of simple random samples.
To generate a simple random sample, each member of a population can be assigned a unique ID — for example, a whole number. Then, a random number generator can be used to generate IDs until the desired sample size is satisfied.