Chapter 3

COLLECTING
QUANTITATIVE DATA: Sampling
and Data collection
The process of collecting quantitative data consists of
more than simply collecting data.
It involves the following five steps
determining the participants to study,
obtaining permissions needed from several individuals
and organizations,
considering what types of information to collect from
several sources available to the quantitative research,
locating and selecting instruments to use that will net
useful data for the study, and finally,
administering the data collection process to collect data.
WHAT PARTICIPANTS WILL YOU STUDY?
These decisions require that you decide on a unit of
analysis, the group and individuals you will study, the
procedure for selecting these individuals, and assessing
the numbers of people needed for your data analysis.
Identify Your Unit of Analysis
Who can supply the information that you
will use to answer your quantitative
research questions or hypotheses?
Some possibilities might be individuals,
households, organization, community, state,
country etc
Specify the Population and Sample
you need to consider what individuals or organization or
community you will study.
select those who are representative of the entire group.
 Representative refers to the selection of individuals from a
sample of a population such that the individuals selected are
typical of the population under study, enabling you to draw
conclusions from the sample about the population as a whole.
A population is a group of individuals who have the
same characteristic.
A target population(or the sampling frame) is a group
of individuals (or a group of organizations) with some
common defining characteristic that the researcher can
identify and study.
A sample is a subgroup of the target population that the
researcher plans to study for generalizing about the
target population.
In an ideal situation, you can select a sample of
individuals who are representative of the entire population.
Probabilistic and Non probabilistic
Sampling
Researchers employ either probability or non
probability sampling approaches.
several types of both approaches are available.
Researchers decide which type of sampling to use in
their study based on such factors as
the amount of rigor they seek for their studies,
the characteristics of the target population, and
the availability of participants.
In probability sampling, the researcher selects
individuals from the population who are representative
of that population.
This is the most rigorous form of sampling in
quantitative research because the investigator can claim
that the sample is representative of the population and, as
such, can make generalizations to the population.
Simple Random Sampling
 The most popular and rigorous form of probability
sampling from a population is simple random sampling.
In simple random sampling, the researcher selects
participants (or units, such as households) for the sample
so that any individual has an equal probability of being
selected from the population.
 The intent of simple random sampling is to choose
individuals to be sampled who will be representative of
the population.
Any bias in the population will be equally distributed
among the people chosen.
The typical procedure used in simple random sampling is
to assign a number to each individual (or site) in the
population and then use a random numbers table,
available in many statistics books, to select the
individuals (or sites) for the sample.
For this procedure, you need a list of members in the
target population and a number must be assigned to each
individual.
Systematic Sampling
A slight variation of the simple random sampling
procedure is to use systematic sampling.
In this procedure, you choose every nth individual
or site in the population until you reach your
desired sample size.
This procedure is not as precise and rigorous as using the
random numbers table, but it may be more convenient
because individuals do not have to be numbered and it
does not require a random numbers table.
Stratified Sampling
In stratified sampling, researchers divide (stratify) the
population on some specific characteristic (e.g., gender)
and then, using simple random sampling, sample from
each subgroup (stratum) of the population (e.g., females
and males).
It guarantees that the sample will include specific
characteristics that the researcher wants included in the
sample.
Stratification ensures that the stratum desired
(females) will be represented in the sample in
proportion to that existence in the population.

Stratification is also used when a simple random

sampling procedure would yield fewer
participants in a specific category (e.g., females)
than you need for rigorous statistical analysis.
The procedure for selecting a stratified random sample
consists of
a) dividing the population by the stratum (e.g., men and
women) and
b) sampling within each group in the stratum (e.g.,
women first and then men) so that the individuals
selected are proportional to their representation in the
total population.
Multistage Cluster Sampling
In multistage cluster sampling, the researcher chooses a
sample in two or more stages because either the
researchers cannot easily identify the population or the
population is extremely large.
If this is the case, it can be difficult to obtain a complete
list of the members of the population. However, getting a
complete list of groups or clusters in the population
might be possible
Non probability sampling
It is not always possible to use probability sampling
In non probability sampling researcher selects individuals
because they are available, convenient, and represent some
characteristic the investigator seeks to study.
In some situations, you may need to involve participants
who volunteer and who agree to be studied. Further, you
may not be interested in generalizing findings to a
population, but only in describing a small group of
participants in a study.
Researchers use two popular approaches in non probability
sampling: convenience and snowball sampling approaches.
Convenience Sampling
In convenience sampling the researcher selects
participants because they are willing and available to be
studied.
In this case, the researcher cannot say with confidence
that the individuals are representative of the population.
However, the sample can provide useful information for
answering questions and hypotheses.
Snowball Sampling
In this case, the researcher asks participants to identify
others to become members of the sample.
END!
Sample Size
When selecting participants for a study, it is important
to determine the size of the sample you will need.
A general rule of thumb is to select as large a sample
as possible from the population. The larger the sample,
the less the potential error is that the sample will be
different from the population. This difference between
the sample estimate and the true population score is
called sampling error.