Assignment: Convenience sampling Week3

Assignment: Convenience sampling Week3

Assignment: Convenience sampling Week3

Week 3 discussion Research Problems, Designs, and Sample This week, we will discuss the research design and sample for your nursing clinical issue. The research design flows from the research question and outlines the plan for the study that will answer the research question. The design identifies the major components of the study. It is important to remember that there is no one best design for a research study. After you review the designs, describe which research design you would expect to find when searching for evidence relevant to your own research question from Week 2. Why? Explain your answer. The most common sampling method is the convenience sample; therefore, many of the studies that you find for evidence use this sampling method. What are the implications for using a convenience sample on the way you interpret and use the findings?A convenience sample is a type of non-probability sampling method where the sample is taken from a group of people easy to contact or to reach. For example, standing at a mall or a grocery store and asking people to answer questions would be an example of a convenience sample. This type of sampling is also known as grab sampling or availability sampling. There are no other criteria to the sampling method except that people be available and willing to participate. In addition, this type of sampling method does not require that a simple Random sample is generated, since the only criteria is whether the participants agree to participate

Convenience sampling is not often recommended for research due to the possibility of  and lack of representation of population. But it can be handy depending on the situation. In some situations, convenience sampling is the only possible option. For example, a college student who is doing a term project and wants to know the average consumption of coke in that college town on Friday night will most probably call some of his friends and ask them how many cans of coke they drink, or go to a nearby party to do an easy survey. There is always a trade-off between this method of quick sampling and accuracy. Collected samples may not represent the population of interest and therefore be a source of bias.

In the example above, if said college town has a small population and mostly consists of students, and that particular student chooses a graduation party for , then his sample has a fair chance to represent the population. Larger sample size will reduce the chance of sampling error occurring.

Another example would be a gaming company that wants to know how one of their games is doing in the market one day after its release. Its analyst may choose to create an online survey on  to rate that game. The major challenge of this approach will be reaching to the people who play games. As social media is a vast place, it’s always difficult to collect samples from the population of interest. Most people may not be interested or take the survey seriously while completing it, which results in sampling error. The survey may be improved greatly if the analyst posts it to fan pages dedicated to game-lovers. He may find a lot more people in that group who would be inclined to judge and rate the game critically.