Sampling techniques Flashcards
Self selected/ volunteer
Also, known as a volunteer sample. People who sign-up are usually motivated and are less likely to drop out of the research. However, that may lead to a sample that is not representative of the target population.
Opportunity sampling
Also known as a convenience sample. This is when you use a pre-existing sample - for example, Mr Smith’s grade 9 English class. It is an easy way to get participants because they are readily available. The groupings often tend to be relatively homogeneous. However, they are also not usually representative of a target population/ However, if you were doing a study only on grade 9 students at your school, and you used four out of the five existing English classes, then your study would be fairly representative.
Snowball/ network sampling sampling
This is another type of purposive sampling, but network sampling is used when you are looking for participants from a specific group which would not respond to an ad in a paper. For example, former drug addicts, people engaged in illegal activities or victims of domestic violence. It could also be because you think that a participant could help you find people more efficiently. For example, if you are looking for expatriates who have been in Prague for at least 25 years. If you find a few. they may have friends that they could help with the research. Network sampling also helps to build trust with the researcher If a recovered drug addict recommends my research to a friend with the same history, it saves time in trying to build up trust for carrying out the research. If John thought the researcher was ok, then so would his friend.
Stratified/ quota sampling
Stratified sampling attempts to make a sample that reflects the sub-groups within a target population. If our school, for example, consists of 50% native speakers of English, 30% non native speakers of English, and 20% “ESL still getting language support” - and I ran a study in which the entire sample was made up of native speakers, the study would not be representative of our school community A stratifted sample of 40 participants should be made up of 20 native speakers, 12 non-native speakers and 8 ESL students who are still receiving support. Ideally, the participants are randomly selected from each “stratum.” The problem with stratified samples is that one has to be carefully about how they label the groups within a community. If we were to divide our school into “North American”, “European” and “Other” - would the “other” label fairly represent the non-US/Euro population at our school?
