Sampling Techniques

Probability sampling
• A sampling procedure in which each and
every element of the population has a known
chance of being selected for the sample. The
known chance does not mean equal chance.
• This is used in Conclusive research.
 Nonprobability Sampling Techniques

• The element of the population do not have

any known chance of being selected in the
sample.
• Used in exploratory resaerch
 Convenience Sampling
• Used in pre-test phase of a research study such s the pre testing of
the questionnaire.
• Criteria for selecting sampling units in this scheme is the
convenience of the researcher.
• Obtain information quickly and inexpensively.
• Examples.
• People interviewed in a shopping center
• Monitoring the price level in a grocery shop with the objective of
inferring the trends in inflation in the economy.
• Requesting people to volunteer to test products.
• Using students or employees of an organization for conducting an
experiment.
• Interviews conducted by a TV channel of people coming out of a
cinema hall, to seek their opinion about the movie.
• Convenience sampling is commonly used in exploratory
research. This is because the purpose of an exploratory research
is to gain an insight into the problem and generate a set of
hypotheses which could be tested with the help of a conclusive
research. When very little is known about a subject, a small-
scale convenience sampling can be of use in the exploratory
work to help understand the range of variability of responses in
a subject area.
• It should not be used in conclusive research as samples are
selected on the basis of availability and estimate of sampling
error is not possible. Secondly no effort is made to choose a
representative sample.
 Judgmental sampling
• Judgmental sampling is a form of convenience sampling in which
the population elements are selected based on the judgment of the
researcher.
• The researcher, exercising judgment or expertise, chooses the
elements to be included in the sample, because he or she believes
that they are representative of the population of interest or are
otherwise appropriate.
• Common examples of judgmental sampling include
• (1) purchase engineers selected in industrial marketing research
because they are considered to be representative of the company.
• A company wanting to launch a new product may use this technique
for selecting experts who have prior experience of similar products.
• Judgmental sampling is used in B2 B
marketing. However judgement samples are
highly subjective and so is prone to error too
 Convenience sampling is the least expensive and least time-
consuming of all sampling techniques.
• The sampling units are accessible, easy to measure, and
cooperative. In spite of these advantages, this form of sampling has
serious limitations.
• Many potential sources of selection bias are present, including
respondent self-selection. Convenience samples are not
representative of any definable population. Hence, it is not
theoretically meaningful to generalize to any population from a
convenience sample, and convenience samples are not appropriate
for marketing research projects involving population inferences.
• Suitable for exploratory studies
• Not suitable for Descriptive and causal research
 Simple random with replacement
• Under this scheme, a list of all the elements of the population
from where the samples to be drawn is prepared. If there are 1000
elements in the population, we write the identification number or
the name of all the 1000 elements on 1000 different slips. These
are put in a box and shuffled properly. If there are 20 elements to
be selected from the population, the simple random sampling
procedure involves selecting a slip from the box and reading of
the identification number. Once this is done, the chosen slip is put
back to the box and again a slip is picked up and the identification
number is read from that slip. This continues till a sample of 20 is
selected. Please note that the first element is chosen with a
probability of 1/1000, the second one is also selected with the
same probability and so are all the subsequent elements of the
population. process
 Simple random sampling without
replacement
• In the case of simple random sample without
replacement, the procedure is identical to what was
explained in the case of simple random sampling
with replacement. The only difference here is that the
chosen slip is not placed back in the box. This way,
the first unit would be selected with the probability
of 1/1000, second unit with the probability of 1/999,
the third will be selected with a probability of 1/998
and so on, till we select the required number of
elements (in this case, 15) in our sample.
• The simple random sampling (with or without replacement) is
not used in a consumer research. This is because in a
consumer research the population size is usually very large,
which creates problems in the preparation of a sampling
frame. For example, there is a large number of consumers of
soft drinks, pizza, shampoo, soap, chocolate, etc. However,
these (SRSWR and SRSWOR) designs could be useful when
the population size is very small, for example, the number of
steel/aluminum-producing companies in India and the number
of banks in India. Since the population size is quite small, the
preparation of a sampling frame does not create any problem.
 Stratified Sampling
• The total target population is divided into segments/
strata on the basis of some important variables. For
ex, a consumer population may be divided into age
brackets of below 25, 25-40 and above 40 years.
Then a sample is taken from each of the strata.
• The elements within a stratum should be as
homogeneous as possible, but the elements in
different strata should be as heterogeneous as
possible
 Cluster Sampling
• A cluster is a group of sampling units or elements which can be
identified, listed and a sample of which can be chosen. Cluster
could be on any criteria like geographical area or membership of
some groups.
• For each selected cluster, either all the elements are included in the
sample or a sample of elements is drawn probabilistically. If all the
elements in each
• selected cluster are included in the sample, the procedure is called
one-stage cluster sampling.
• If a sample of elements is drawn probabilistically from each
selected cluster, the procedure is two stage
• cluster sampling.
 Cluster Sampling
• in the cluster sampling, the entire population is
divided into various clusters in such a way that
the elements within the clusters are
heterogeneous. However, there is homogeneity
between the clusters. This design, therefore, is
just the opposite of the stratified sampling
design, where there was homogeneity within
the strata and heterogeneity between the strata
• To illustrate the example of a cluster sampling, one
may assume that there is a company having its
corporate office in a multi-storey building. In the first
floor, we may assume that there is a marketing
department where the offices of the president
(marketing), vice president (marketing) and so on to
the level of management trainee (marketing) are
there.
Naturally, there would be a lot of variation
(heterogeneity) in the amount of salaries they draw and
hence a high amount of variation in the amount of
money spent on entertainment. Similarly, if the finance
department is housed on the second floor, we may find
almost a similar pattern. Same could be assumed for
third, fourth and other floors. Now, if each of the floors
could be treated as a cluster, we find that there is
homogeneity between the clusters but there is a lot of
heterogeneity within the clusters. Now, a sample of, say,
2 to 3 clusters is chosen at random and once having
done so, each of the cluster is enumerated completely to
be able to make an estimate of the amount of money the
entire population spends on entertainment.