paediatric nursing June 2008 vol 20 no 5
research update
Sampling in
quantitative research
Broadly
speaking, in
quantitative research, two
types of samples are used. The first,
and most common, is the representative
sample. It is important in most research
that the sample be representative,
because only in this way can the findings
be extrapolated to the wider population.
Several factors affect how representative
a sample is. Size is important. If we are
investigating the lifestyle of an endangered
species of bird, of which there are only ten
left, then a sample of five is acceptable. If
we are studying all the nursing students in
a university, then 25 would most likely not
be a representative sample. A large sample
of, let’s say, 25,000 would be needed to
survey the population of a whole country.
Political polls (of which we hear much when
an election is close) use from 1,000 to
2,000 subjects.
Where the sample comes from affects its
representativeness. To investigate staff at,
say, Great Ormond Street Hospital, one
would need to survey the whole hospital,
not just staff from the cardiac wards or
the outpatients department. How the data
are collected is important. If I wanted to
investigate who uses Great Ormond Street,
I would not stand in front of the cardiac
wards only, or the sample would be biased.
I would need to collect data from all the
patients who use the hospital.
Randomisation is often used to minimise
bias. Subjects are chosen using a
mathematical procedure to assign them
randomly by postcode, or date of birth, or
telephone number, or some other objective
method of codification.
The other type of sample used in
quantitative research is a convenience
sample. Research done with convenience
samples cannot be generalised to the wider
population, it is descriptive only. However,
research using convenience samples is
exploratory, and can be a good place to
start when little or no work has been
PN June 08 p37.indd 37
This update is one of an occasional series
by Linda Shields and Alison Twycross.
done on a
particular
subject. I am conducting
a study of the needs of parents
of hospitalised children in several
countries. I have visited all the countries
– England (Shields et al 2004), Australia,
Sweden (Shields et al 2003, Shields
and Kristensson-Hallström 2004) and
Indonesia (and I intend to study in
Iran soon), but of course, the visits to
each place have been short. It would be
impossible for me to include every parent
of every child who was admitted to the
hospitals involved in each country, so I
have had to use a convenience sample, and
recruit all the parents in the wards at the
time that I visited.
Limitations of convenience
However, it would be almost as difficult,
and perhaps not ethically sound, to
randomise parents to different groups
to see if needs are different between the
groups. I do not have the time, nor the
money to employ research assistants to do
this. This could be a big problem, a flaw, in
my research, as I have no way of knowing
that the parents in the study would be
different from another group, or if my
results have been biased by using this
convenience sample.
For example, it might have happened
that the parents I recruited in one ward
had just been part of a large media cam-
paign about that ward if it has, say, won
awards for efficiency, and they may have
positive feelings about the ward, whereas
parents in wards not included in the
campaign might not have positive feel-
ings about the care their child receives. If
I had been able to include the parents in
a well-constructed randomised fashion, in
other words, have a random sample, then
37
the
chance of
the parents being
chosen more evenly between
the different groups would have been
increased, making my study stronger.
Such events do not mean the study cannot
be done. Using a convenience sample can
be valid and rigorous, but it is important
that this is acknowledged and something
about it written in the ‘limitations’ section
of the paper when it is submitted for
publication.
Linda Shields PhD, FRCNA Professor of
Nursing, University of Hull, England,
Honorary Professor, University of Queensland;
Alison Twycross is Principal Lecturer in
Children’s Nursing, Faculty of Health and
Social Care Sciences, Kingston University –
St George’s University of London
References
Shields L et al (2003) An examination of the
needs of parents of hospitalised children:
comparing parents’ and staff’s perceptions.
Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences. 17, 2,
176-184.
Shields L et al (2004) Parents’ and staff’s
perceptions of parental needs during a child’s
admission to hospital: an English perspective
Journal of Child Health Care. 8, 1, 9-33
Shields L, Kristensson-Hallström I (2004)
We have needs, too: parental needs during a
child’s hospitalisation. Online Brazilian Journal
of Nursing (OBJN-ISSN 1676-4285) [online]
istock
2004 December; 3(3) www.uff.br/nepae/
objn303shieldsetal.htm (Accessed: 7 May 2008)
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