PSYC 251 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Stratified Sampling, Multistage Sampling, Cluster Sampling
Document Summary
Population: the group you wish to make generalizations about often everyone . Sample: a subset of the population, our participants constitute our sample. Sample representativeness: samples are representative of a population to the degree that they reflect a microcosm of the population. With a representative sample, we can conclude that the patterns we see in the sample will translate well to the larger population. Biased or unrepresentative samples occur when we sample poorly. Sampling techniques: random sampling: every member of the population has an equal chance of being selected. (on average) leads to the most representative, accurate sample. Great in theory but realistically very hard (if not impossible) to implement: convenience sampling. Opposite end of the spectrum we simply sample those that are easy to get access to. Unfortunately a technique commonly used in psychology research due to practical limitations. Not completely invalid but definitely introduces limitations: stratified sampling.
