Participants Flashcards
What is a ‘random sample’ and what is one strength and one weakness of this sampling technique?
This method gives every member of the target group an equal chance of being selected for the sample.
Strengths: No bias as everyone has an equal chance of being selected.
Weaknesses: Must already have a list of target population and contact them individually which may take a lot of time. No guarantee they will want to participate either.
What is a ‘Systematic’ and what is one strength and one weakness of this sampling technique?
This method has a system that is created to choose participants. E.g every 4th name on a register.
Strengths: Unbiased and objective way of selecting participants.
Weaknesses: Not truly random.
What is a ‘Stratified’ sampling and what is one strength and one weakness of this sampling technique?
A sample of participants are randomly selected by identifying subgroups and matching them to the amount in a target population (for instance 50/50 men and women) then randomly choosing participants out of these subgroups to participate.
Strengths: Highly representative of overall population.
Weaknesses: Takes an extremely long period of time to set up all the subgroups ect.
What is a ‘Quota’ and what is one strength and one weakness of this sampling technique?
Same as stratified as subgroups matched to target population. Only difference is participants from the subgroups are NOT randomly selected.
(same eval as stratified sampling)
Strengths: Highly representative of overall population.
Weaknesses: Takes an extremely long period of time to set up all the subgroups ect.
What is a ‘volunteer sample’ and what is one strength and one weakness of this sampling technique?
Volunteer Sample – Participants volunteer to participate through usually seeing an advertisement.
Strengths: This often achieves a large sample size through reaching a wide audience, for example with online advertisements.
Weaknesses: Those who respond to the call for volunteers may all display similar characteristic.
What is a ‘snowball sample’ and what is one strength and one weakness of this sampling technique?
Snowball Sample – Participants recruit other participants to join the study.
Strength: Saves a lot of time as the researcher doesn’t have to gather as many participants himself.
Weakness: Not representative as it will favour social people with more friends.
What is a ‘opportunity sample’ and what is one strength and one weakness of this sampling technique?
Opportunity Sample – Selects people who are available at the time of the study.
Strength – Saves a lot of time as you can use the first suitable participants.
Weakness – Not representative as it favours people who have more time e.g. unemployed people.
What is a Sampling Frame (with eval)
A group/population that is identified when it is unrealistic to study the whole target population e.g. people in London.
What are the two observational sampling techniques
Event Sampling
Time Sampling
What is ‘Time sampling’ with eval
Time sampling. – An observational technique where observers record behaviours in a given time frame such as recording what an individual is doing every 30 seconds.
Strength: A strength of time sampling is that it makes the observation easier to manage, rather than being overwhelmed by every single behaviour that occurs.
Weakness: A weakness of time sampling is that whilst your on a time interval, you may miss behaviours occurring. This reduces reliability.
What is ‘Event Sampling’ with eval
Event sampling is a method of recording behaviour in an observation where the researcher records how many times a particular event occurs.
A strength of event sampling is that any rare behaviours that take place are noted down because of the wide time period.
A weakness of event sampling is that if too many behaviours (events) occur at once they will be missed, this reduces the validity of the study.
