Theoretical Sampling

Click to edit Master subtitle style Gamaro, Windelyn

Villa, April
4/15/12

Theoretical Sampling
is a term coined by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss in 1967 in the context of social research to describe the process of choosing new research sites or research cases to compare with one that has already been studied. It is one of the tools of qualitative research.

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Researchers goal:
Is not the representative capture of all possible variations, but to gain a deeper understanding of analyzed cases and facilitate the development of analytic frame and concepts used in their research.

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Why use this method?

This method is best used when the research focuses on theory and concept development and the research team's goal is to develop theory and concepts that are connect to, grounded in or emergent from real life events and circumstances.

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Characteristics of Theoretical Sampling :

the researcher usually collects data through interviews or observation for Grounded Theory coding analysis The adequacy of theoretical sampling is judged by the wideness and diversity of data which the researcher selects for building theory theoretical sampling aims to discover categories and their properties to emerge a theory

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Initial Considerations of Theoretical Sampling

the researcher must choose organizations, sites or groups to be analyzed

it is important for the researcher to obtain permission to access the sites from the appropriate authorities the researcher must identify the types of data to be collected the researcher must consider the length of the investigation
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Contd ..

depending on : accessibility and availability of resources, goals, energy and schedule of the research, the researcher must decide the number of sites, observations and interviews to be analyzed

a)

b)

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 Initial Considerations of Interviews

it is important to give the interviewees wide freedom to answer during the interviewing process Typically, the researcher conducts from 20 to 30 interviews to saturate the categories.

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Thank you for

Listening

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