Sampling

The biggest challenge in any research for a researcher is to select a sample

which represents the population. The better and accurate the sample the
precise and correct are the results and the inferences, thus making the
research effective and successful.

Sampling is a process used by researchers to draw an

accurate sample which represents all the characteristics of the population. It
involves certain specific techniques which assist the researcher to draw a good
sample. Having understood this fact let us try to understand what exactly we
mean by a population, sample and sampling.

Population, Element and Sample

A Population or universe can be defined as an identifiable and well specified

group of individuals or objects who are selected for research. For example the
population for our research study on “Effect of Intelligence on academic
performance of 10th class students in Hyderabad” would be all the students
studying class 10th in different schools across the city.

Elements are those on whom we intend to conduct a research.

A Sample on the other hand can be defined as the small group of individuals or
objects who are selected to represent the population. The sample should be
drawn in such a way that all the characteristics in the population should be
reflected or covered in the population. In our above example “Effect of
Intelligence on academic performance of 10th class students in Hyderabad” as
we cannot study all the students of class 10th we prefer to choose those
students who represent the characteristics i.e. who have same age, marks,
grades, I.Q scores as found in majority, this process of drawing a
representative of the Population is called sampling and the final product drawn
is called a sample. We finally conduct our research on the sample and
generalise it to the main population, in no way we are interested to study the
sample our main aim is to study the population.