Week 2 – Discussion: Sampling

Respond to the following prompts in the Sampling discussion forum by Wednesday 10/25/2023: What are the strengths and weaknesses of various types of sampling? Give two examples.

School Course/Subject: School Guidance and Academic Counselor

See Example below of what another student posted:

One type of sampling that is commonly used in research is random sampling, in which the researchers choose members of a population at random to participate in their scientific study or survey. Random sampling is best used when the intention behind the research is to apply your result to be representative of the larger population or group from which you are sampling (Kimmons, 2022). There are four strategies that can be used when conducting a random sample depending on the details of what you are studying and would like to learn about your population. These are simple sampling, stratified sampling, proportional sampling, and cluster sampling. A limitation to this approach is that you must be sure that the population you have randomly selected is diverse enough that it is truly representative of the group that you are studying or else your results will not be accurate.

A second type of sampling that is used in educational research is purposeful sampling. In these kind of surveys, researchers will select certain individuals from a population based on specific traits or knowledge that they might have. The idea is that the researchers are looking for participants who can "help them to most meaningfully and accurately answer the research question" (Kimmons, 2022). This is very different from random sampling but comes with unique advantages depending on the question being asked in the survey. Types of purposeful sampling include informant, extreme case and intensity, quota, and snowball sampling.

Reference

Kimmons, R. (2022). Sampling. Education Research. https://edtechbooks.org/education_research/sampling