SAMPLING

• what is the population?

  refers to the large group of individuals that the researcher is interested in studying
• what is a target population?

  a subset of the general population, more specific
• what is a sample?

  a smaller group selected from the target population
• what is a random sample?

  where all members of the target population have an equal chance at being selected
• what is a systematic sample?

  where every nth number of the target population is selected
• what is a sampling frame?

  a list of the target population, organised by alphabetical order ect
• what is a stratified sample?

  where the sample reflects the proportions of the target population
• what is an opportunity sample?

  a sample of chance, asking whoever is around at the time of research
• what is a volunteer sample?

  participants volunteer to be part of the research
• strengths of random sample

  potentially unbiased
• weakness of random sampling

  difficult and time consuming to conduct

  may end up with an unrepresentative sample

  participants may refuse to take part
• strengths of systematic sampling

  objective
• weaknesses of systematic sampling

  time consuming

  may refuse to take part
• strengths of stratified sampling

  produces a representative sample so results can be generalised
• weakness of stratified sample

  complete representation of the target population isnt possible
• strengths of an opportunity sample

  convenient, less costly and less time consuming
• weaknesses of an opportunity sample

  unrepresentative sample so biased, the findings cant be generalised
• strengths of volunteer sample

  participants are willing so will place more effort and engage in the research
• weakness of a volunteer sample

  volunteer bias, they may share certain traits such as wanting to be helpful so generalisation is limited