sampling Flashcards
what does the term population refer to?
the members of the group the
researcher is interested in researching.
what does the term sample refer to?
a small sub-group chosen from the population to
take part in the study.
what does the term sampling frame refer to?
a list of the population the researcher is
interested in studying from which the sample is chosen.
what does the term sampling method refer to?
different techniques used to select the
sample from the sampling frame.
what does the term response rate refer to?
the number of people from the sample who
agree to take part in your research.
what are the unrepresentative sampling methods?
random, systematic, snowball, opportunity
what is random sampling?
the simplest technique, it involves
selecting the sample purely by random chance( drawing
names out of a hat and everyone has equal chance of being
selected.)
what is systematic sampling?
involves selecting every n-th person
from the sampling frame,(e.g. 10th person on the sampling
frame)
what is snowball sampling?
the researcher contacts one individual
who agrees to take part in the study, this individual then
suggests other possible participants to the researcher.
what is opportunity sampling?
also known as convenience sampling,
involves choosing from those who are easy to access(e.g.
passers-by in the street.)
why do researchers use an unrepresentative sample?
Interpretivists are more concerned with gaining verstehen than
with making generalisations so they don’t mind.
practical reasons:
The researcher may not know the social characteristics of the
population( their age or ethnicity so it is impossible to create a
sample that is an exact cross-section of the population)
It may be impossible to create or access the sampling frame for
some groups in society such as criminals as not all criminals are
known to the police.
what are the representative sampling methods?
stratified random sampling& quota sampling
what is stratified random sampling?
includes dividing (stratifying) the
population into lists, (males and females, e/m and white, etc. and
then taking a proportional number from each list.)
