Gabay, Adrienne Chelsea C.

NO7A
11823496 BASSTAT

1. Who is Slovin?

Based on research, there is limited data or information with regards to the

inventor of the Slovin’s formula. There are more websites on how to use the said

formula but there was barely any background on the person who started it all. Even

Wikipedia had no answers to the question. Numerous names such Michael Slovin,

Mark Slovin, and many more have been attributed to the person behind but in the

end, there was no definite answer. All the information you could probably get was

that the formula was published in 1967. However, there is this one person who has

published a very similar formula a few years after the Slovin’s formula was

published and that person was Taro Yamane. He is a well-known statistician who

became famous for having developed a formula close to the Slovin’s one in 1973.

From what I understand, he’s the one getting all the credit from other statisticians

for the Slovin’s formula and for his formula as well. In conclusion, I am assuming

that it really is Taro Yamane that is behind the Slovin’s formula and the name

“Slovin” might have been a mistake.

2. What is Slovin’s Formula and its use?

𝑁
The Slovin’s formula is written as: 𝑛 = . It is used to determine a
(1+𝑁𝑒 2 )

sample size (n) that is both appropriate and accurate based on the population size

(N) and the margin of error that is within the accepted range (e).

3. When is it best to use Slovin’s formula?

 It is best to use Slovin’s formula when there is no information on how a

certain population behaves. For example, the heights of teenagers follows a

normal distribution. You have no idea how to perform this distribution because you

don’t know how large or how small your sample size should be to be able to

determine their behavior or characteristic. This is where the Slovin’s formula

comes in. Given that the population is 50 people, you can use the said formula on

determining the sample size for you to perform and observe the normal distribution

regarding the heights of teenagers.

4. What are the limitations of Slovin’s Formula?

The use of Slovin’s formula is when a certain popular is too big to sample

each and every member. For example, there are around 400 people working in an

office. Most researchers would take the whole group of 400 people to yield results

from a survey. However, they are not considering the fact that within that group,

there could be subgroups of people working in different departments like

maintenance, janitorial, and many more. If researchers continue to sample the

whole group, they will find out in the end that results from the survey would

extremely differ from one another. Using the slovin’s formula, they could conduct

a survey for each subgroup or basically sample each group which therefore will

make it clear on how these results apply to these group of people working under

this department of the office. From there, the results would be more accurate.
References:

Tejada, J.J, & Punzalan, R.B. (2012). On the Misuse of Slovin’s Formula. The

Philippine Statistician, 61(1), 129 – 136. Retrieved from

http://www.psai.ph/tps_details.php?p=1&id=26