Planning and conducting research (population, samples and sampling method) Flashcards
Definition of target population
The group of people with a researcher is interested in studying
Definition of sampling method
The different ways in which researcher can obtain a sample of people from within the target population to take part in the study
Definition of sample
The actual group of participants used in the research
Four types of sampling techniques
Self-selecting
Opportunity
Random
Snowball
Definition of self-selecting sampling
When people volunteered to take part in the study
Advert poster a leaflet , contain details and contact details
Definition of opportunity sampling
Selecting those who are most readily available at a given time and place selected by researcher
Definition of random sampling
Each member of the target population has an equal chance of being selected
Definition of snowball sampling
When participants are asked to contact their friends and family to ask them to also take part in the research they, in tern, then ask other people
Strength and weakness of self-selected sampling
Easy to obtain participant
They give consent by signing up to the research and are more likely to continue with the full study
Un representative sample
No strength and weakness of opportunity sampling
Less expensive
Easy to obtain at the time of their study
Un representative of the population
Researcher bias (friendly/polite)
Strength and weakness of random sampling
Everyone has an equal chance of being selected for the research, so is representative of the target population
Outlier
Sometimes hard to ensure all participants have an equal chance to be selected
Select people may not be willing to take part
Strength and weakness of snowball sampling
Easy to obtain sample (with difficult to target population, like prisoner and health condition)
Participant variables
Not able to generalise to sample — family and friends often have similar characteristic is not diverse
