Sampling

Question 1

what is a population

Answer 1

A population is a group sharing one or more characteristics from which a sample is drawn

Question 2

What are the different types of sampling techniques

Answer 2

-Opportunity
-Random
-Volunteer/self selected

Question 3

What is volunteer/self selected sampling

Answer 3

this is when participants are invited to participate in studies via advertisements or emails , posters , internet etc. The people that respond to the ads/announcements are used as subjects

Question 4

strengths of Volunteer sampling

Answer 4

-Subjects are more motivated and likely to be committed to the research hence less likely to withdraw their data.

-Convenient to the researcher because volunteers come to the researcher

Question 5

Weaknesses of volunteer sampling

Answer 5

-Risk of demand characteristics as they are aware that they are subjects in a study , even if the aim is concealed.

• Researchers are unlikely to gain a wide variety of participants to allow for generalisation because participants will only be of a certain type e.g people who have more freetime (young , elderly , unemployed)

Question 6

Opportunity sampling

Answer 6

Here the researcher uses people they find available at the time of the study e.g piliavin

Question 7

Strengths of opportunity sampling

Answer 7

-More convenient to the researcher

-High ecological validity as ss are in their natural setting.

-Low risk of demand characteristics as they are oblivious of the study going on.

-Large numbers of participants can be obtained relatively quickly and easily because researchers use people who are around

Question 8

Weaknesses of opportunity sampling

Answer 8

-Breaches the the ethical guideline of informed consent as the ss do not know they are in a study

-Researchers are unlikely to gain a wide variety of participants which will result in low generalisability.

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Question 9

Random sampling

Answer 9

-Here a sample is obtained from the target population.
-all population members are allocated numbers, and a fixed amount of these are chosen unbiasedly, e.g by picking out numbers from a hat.
-All members of the target population have an equal chance of being selected.

Question 10

Weaknesses of random sampling

Answer 10

-Everyone may not be equally chosen. For example, there could be more girls chosen randomly than boys.

Question 11

Strengths of random sampling

Answer 11

-More representative of the diversities of the general population hence more generalisation.

-All types of people from the general population are equally like to be chosen

Question 12

Example of a core study that used opportunity sampling

Question 13

Example of a core study that used volunteer sampling

Answer 13

-Baron Cohen et al
-Milgram