Sampling Process In Research

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Sampling is the act, process, or technique of selecting a representative part of a population for the purpose of determining the characteristics of the whole population. In other words, the process of selecting a sample from a population using special sampling techniques called sampling. It should be ensured in the sampling process itself that the sample selected is representative of the population. Steps in Sampling Process An operational sampling process can be divided into seven steps as given below: Defining the Target Population: Defining the population of interest, for business research, is the first step in sampling process. In general, target population is defined in terms of element, sampling unit, extent, and time frame. The definition…show more content…
A sampling frame is the list of elements from which the sample may be drawn. Continuing with the micro oven ex, an ideal sampling frame would be a database that contains all the households that have a monthly income above Rs.20,000. However, in practice it is difficult to get an exhaustive sampling frame that exactly fits the requirements of a particular research. In general, researchers use easily available sampling frames like telephone directories and lists of credit card and mobile phone users. Various private players provide databases developed along various demographic and economic variables. Sometimes, maps and aerial pictures are also used as sampling frames. Whatever may be the case, an ideal sampling frame is one that entire population and lists the names of its elements only once. A sampling frame error pops up when the sampling frame does not accurately represent the total population or when some elements of the population are missing another drawback in the sampling frame is over -representation. A telephone directory can be over represented by names/household that have two or more connections. 3. Specifying the Sampling…show more content…
There are various ways of classifying the techniques used in determining the sample size. A couple those hold primary importance and are worth mentioning are whether the technique deals with fixed or sequential sampling and whether its logic is based on traditional or Bayesian methods. In non-probability sampling procedures, the allocation of budget, thumb rules and number of sub groups to be analyzed, importance of the decision, number of variables, nature of analysis, incidence rates, and completion rates play a major role in sample size determination. In the case of probability sampling, however, formulas are used to calculate the sample size after the levels of acceptable error and level of confidence are specified. The details of the various techniques used to determine the sample size will be explained at the end of the

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