Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Participants (Sampling Techniques (Self-Selected Sample - Adverts for the…
Participants
Sampling Techniques
Snowball Sample - Identify one/a few participants and get them to recruit further participants from amongst people they know
Useful for gaining access to hard to reach participants, such as addicts, sometimes making it the most appropriate technique
Unrepresentative - participants are all friends of friends, making it difficult to generalise the findings to the target population
Quota Sample - Subgroups or strata within a target population are identified and participants are gained from each in proportion to the rate they appear in the target population, this selection is done with a non-random technique e.g. opportunity sample
Most representative sampling method - proportional representation of subgroups allowing for easy generalisation
Time consuming - have to identify subgroups and then select participants using non-random selection techniques
Systematic Sample - Use a predetermined system to select every nth person from the target population
Not truly unbiased - an objective selection system could still result in more males etc, meaning results could still be difficult to generalise
-
Stratified Sample - Subgroups or strata within a target population are identified and participants are gained from each in proportion to the rate they appear in the target population, this selection is done randomly
Most representative sampling method - proportional representation of subgroups allowing for easy generalisation
Time consuming - have to identify subgroups and then select participants using random selection techniques
Self-Selected Sample - Adverts for the study are distributed and the participants volunteer to take part
-
Volunteer bias - sample made of certain types of people who are likely to volunteer, making it unrepresentative of the target population
-
Random Sample - Get a list of everyone from within the target population, and select a number of them in a random manner (e.g random computer name generator)
Time consuming - everyone within the target population has to be identified and proceed to select participants randomly
Could still create a biased sample - could produce a 'freak' unrepresentative sample, this would be impossible using a stratified technique
Unbiased - everyone in the target population has an equal chance of being selected - more representative and easier to generalise the results
-
Key Terms
Target Population - Refers to the group of individuals a researcher is interested in (e.g. people aged 65+)
Sampling Frame - Refers to the smaller group from the target population the researcher is going to sample their participants from (e.g. retirement homes)
Sample Group - Refers to the participants actually used in the research, this is a sample taken from the sampling frame