SOC200H1 Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: Nonprobability Sampling, Snowball Sampling, The Literary Digest
Document Summary
The literary digest polling: by restricting the polls to telephone and automobile owners they included a disproportionate amount of wealthy people and excluded a disproportionate amount of poor people. Non-probability sampling: any technique in which samples are selected in some fashion not suggested by probability theory. E. g. purposive (judgemental), snowball, quota sampling, and reliance on available subjects. Issue no guarantee that the samples observed are accurately representative of the whole population. Reliance on available subjects: doesn"t allow control over the representativeness of a sample. Snowball sampling: snowball sampling: a nonprobability sampling method often employed in field research whereby each person interviewed may be asked to suggest additional people for interviewing. Quota sampling: quota sampling: units are selected into the sample on the basis of pre-specified characteristics, so that the total sample will have the same distribution of characteristics assumed to exist in the population being studied.
