Selection of Participants

Question 1

Random Sampling

Answer 1

• Every member of the population has an equal chance of being chosen.
  > eg. Everyone’s name in a hat and pull out the required number of participants.
  > Sample selected in an unbiased way.

Question 2

Evaluation: Random Sampling

Answer 2

+ Unbiased way to select participants as the researcher does not control who participates.
+ The sample is likely to be representative and therefore results can be generalised.
- Sometimes difficult to get details of everyone in the target population due to data protection laws.
- Those who have been selected may refuse to take part in the study.
- Doesn’t guarantee a representative sample

Question 3

Opportunity Sampling

Answer 3

• This is where you select anybody who is convenient.

> Might stand in a town centre and approach people who happen to be walking past.

Question 4

Evaluation: Opportunity Sampling

Answer 4

+ Convenient way to select participants than a random sample.
- It is likely to create a biased, unrepresentative sample making the results ungeneralizable to the whole population.
> Researchers are likely to approach a certain type of person to those who happen to be in area (eg town centre at 10am not generalisable as 9-5 workers unavailable)

Question 5

Volunteer Sampling

Answer 5

• This is where researchers advertise for participants and participants volunteer their participation

Question 6

Evaluation: Volunteer Sampling

Answer 6

+ This is a fairly practical and easy method to get participants.
- Lacks generalisability
> Unrepresentative of the target population (Only those who are enthusiastic to take part)

Question 7

Systematic Sample

Answer 7

• A sampling frame is produced and then every nth person is chosen
  .> (e.g. every 10th name or every 5th name).

Question 8

Evaluation: Systematic Sample

Answer 8

+ Unbiased method of gathering participants as who is chosen is out of the researcher’s hands.
- It can lead to an unrepresentative sample as it can be hard to get everyone’s names from the target population.
- Representative sample is not necessarily going to be produced
> eg. chance that every ‘nth’ person might be of one gender, one religious faith or support one political party

Question 9

Stratified Sample

Answer 9

• The sampling frame produced.
• People then put into different categories depending on the variables deemed relevant, e.g. gender, age, religion.
  > Final sample reflects the % of each type of person you’d see in their target population.

Question 10

Evaluation: Stratified Sample

Answer 10

+ More representative and so generalisable sample than random or systematic sampling.

• Only possible if the researcher has sufficient information about the participants
• Very time consuming method and so not as convenient as opportunity or volunteer sampling.