Summary of Social Survey Sampling

Summary of social surveys- sampling

Sociologist aim to generalise their results to population as the whole. In order to do this they need to choose the right sample. Sample is a sub-group of the people sociologist are interested in for example students. People taking part in the experiment need to be representative to the research that is taking place.

The sampling frame- to choose the sample researches needs to chose the right sample frame first. This is all members of population that researcher is interested in. the example is Young and Willmott who used electoral register as their sampling frame. Once sample frame is chosen researcher needs to choose the sample from that frame this can be done by choosing every fifth name on the register etc. sample needs to be representative to wider population.

Sampling techniques- there is different sampling techniques that sociologist can choose. One of the techniques is random sampling, which is easiest way, where sample is selected randomly for example picking names out of the hat. Quasi-random sampling is another way of choosing sample. This is done by choosing every fifth, tenth name etc on the list. These two sampling techniques might not be representative.

Stratified sampling- males and females have to be separated into two groups and the same numbers of people are picked from that group this will ensure that there is same number of males and females and that sample can be generalised.

Quota sampling- this is similar to stratified sampling however, instead of choosing the sample for each category (males/females) researcher goes out and looks for suitable people for each category for example researcher would go and look for 50 males and 50 females to participate.

Non-representative sampling- purpose of sampling is to see whether people are representative or not. However, for practical and theoretical reasons not all studies want their sample to be representative.

Practical reasons- there is several...