chapter 7 check your understandings

Question 1

. What are five techniques for selecting a probability sample of a
population of interest? Where does random selection enter into each
of these five selection processes?

Answer 1

1. simple random sampling- randomness; from the the start you take a random sample from the entire population of interest
2. multistage sampling- randomness; involves two or more random samples, where you first randomly sample clusters, and than randomly sample people in the selected cluster
3. cluster sampling- randomness: clusters of participants within the population of interest are elected at random, than sample everyone in each cluster
4. stratified sampling- randomness- a variation of stratified sampling in which researcher intentionally overrepresents one of the groups
5. oversampling- randomness; a variation of stratified sampling in which researcher intentionally overrepresents one of the groups

Question 2

In your own words, define the word random in the research methods
context. Then describe the difference between random sampling and
random assignment.

Answer 2

random selection is a way of selecting members of a population for your study’s sample. In contrast, random assignment is a way of sorting the sample into control and experimental groups