Research Design Flashcards
What are the stages involved in designing and conducting much research?
1.Choosing a topic (guided by reasons like own interest, recent patterns in society etc)
- Formulating an aim or hypothesis
- Operationalising Concepts: (defining concepts e.g defining MD in a hypothesis)
- The pilot study (trial study to see issues with study)
- Sampling (who should be in research e.g their target/research population)
6: Sampling Techniques
What is Representative Sampling?
various sampling techniques to gain a representative sample of their research population
-Random Sampling: (purely by chance and equal opportunity like names drawn from a hat)
-Systematic sampling: (every nth person is selected from sampling frame)
-Stratified random sampling: (same proportions as population)
-Quota sampling: (Stratified and then respondents who fit characteristics)
What is Non-Representative sampling?
Theoretical/methodological perspective: Not all studies use representative sampling techniques, because of their perspective e.g Interpretivists engage in a micro level of analysis and are more concerned in gaining a valid understanding of behaviour
Practical reasons: Social characteristics of the research population may not be known and would be impossible to create a sample of & May be impossible to find/create sampling frame for this.
Where it isn’t possible to obtain a representative sample some may use:
-Snowball sampling: contacting individuals who can suggest people for the research
-Opportunity sampling: involves choosing from those individual who are easiest to access but unlikely to be representative
What is a sampling frame?
A data-base of the Target population for the research
One adv and disadvantage of using random sampling
(ADV) lack of bias
(DISADV) not all samples are large enough to ensure representativeness
Why may snowball sampling be used?
Conduct research about people with specific traits who may otherwise be difficult to identify
One advantage + disadvantage of opportunity sampling
-ADV: quick and easy way of choosing participants (convenience)
-DISADV: May be bias
