Sampling Design

Chapter Four

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Introduction
 Once you’ve established research designs you need to
finalize whom you want to sample.
 Every survey will have a population of interest, the
group of people you want to study.
 The science of sampling is about accurately
representing this group.

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Introduction …..
 Deciding if and how to use sampling is a key element of
the research design. As you determine the population of
interest for your survey, you must ask yourself the
following questions:
1. Can we take a complete census or should we sample?
2. What kind of sample should be taken?
3. What size should the sample be?

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CENSUS AND SAMPLE SURVEY
 All items in any field of inquiry constitute a ‘Universe’ or
‘Population.’
 A complete enumeration of all items in the ‘population’ is

known as a census inquiry.

 It can be presumed that in such an inquiry, when all items

are covered, no element of chance is left and highest

accuracy is obtained.
 But in practice this may not be true. Even the slightest

element of bias in such an inquiry will get larger and larger

as the number of observation increases.
 Moreover, there is no way of checking the element of bias

or its extent except through a resurvey or use of sample

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2. CENSUS VS. SAMPLE
 A census is a complete survey of an entire population.
 A census has many advantages if the population is small
and within a workable location.
 A sample gets information from just a small, but
hopefully representative, fraction of the population.
 Most research objectives are better achieved with a
accurate sample.

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 Cont’d
 The major advantages of using a sample rather than a
census are speed and timeliness.
 In other situations, a sample may limit non-sampling
errors by using a smaller number of high-quality
interviews characterized by better interviewers.
 For large population, survey based on a sample takes
less time to complete and reduces costs and effort.

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 Steps in Sample planning
 SP
Define the
population

Execute
sampling
Census vs. process
Sample

Sample Design Estimate costs

Sample Size of sampling

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Cont’d
 Specifying a sample design involves both theoretical
and practical considerations (such as cost, time, labor
involved, and organization).
 The following checklist will help you obtain a sample
that represents the population (Fink, 2003).

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Cont’d
1. Are the survey objectives stated precisely?
2. Are the eligibility criteria for survey respondents or
experimental subjects clear and definite? Exclusion
criteria rule out certain people.
3. Are rigorous sampling methods chosen? This involves
selecting an appropriate probability or non-probability
sampling method.

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 Cont’d
Further questions to be answered in this section include:
 What type of sample should be used?
 What is the appropriate sampling unit?
 What is the appropriate frame (that is, list of sampling
units from which the sample is to be drawn) for the
particular design and unit decided upon?
 How are refusals and non response to be handled?

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 Steps in sampling design
Step i: DEFINE THE POPULATION
 The first step in planning a sample is to

define the population.

 A population consists of the total set of

individuals, households, or businesses you

want to include in your study.
 Factors in defining population :

A)Location
B) time

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DEFINE THE POPULATION….
Possible steps in defining population ;
1) Define your ideal population.
2) Apply practical constraints to establish a
workable study population.
3) Be careful!!
Under-defining the population will lead to
the unnecessary inclusion of certain groups,
over-defining the population can lead to
higher cost and highly defined groups that
are more difficult to locate and survey.

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Step ii; Sampling unit:
 It is a decision has to be taken concerning a sampling
unit before selecting sample.
 Sampling unit may be a geographical one such as state,

district, village, etc., or a construction unit such as

house, flat, etc., or it may be a social unit such as
family, club, school, etc., or it may be an individual.

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 Step 3: Source list
(iii) Source list: It is also known as ‘sampling frame’
from which sample is to be drawn. It contains the
names of all items of a universe (in case of finite
universe only).
 It is extremely important for the source list to be as
representative of the population as possible.

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 Size of sample:
 This refers to the number of items to be selected from the

universe to constitute a sample.

 The size of sample should neither be excessively large, nor

too small. It should be optimum.

 On need to consider desired precision and acceptable confidence level

for the estimate Precision : errors magnitude

 Acceptable confidence interval = z value with SD

90%--- Z score =1.645

95%,--- Z score =1.96

Estimated standard deviations

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Parameters of interest:

 In determining the sample design, one must

consider the question of the specific
population parameters which are of interest.
For instance, we may be interested in
estimating the proportion of persons with
some characteristic in the population, or we
may be interested in knowing some average
or the other measure concerning the
population.

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Vi. Budgetary constraint: Cost considerations, from
practical point of view, have a major impact upon
decisions relating to not only the size of the sample
but also to the type of sample. This fact can even
lead to the use of a non-probability sample.

(vii) Sampling procedure: Finally, the researcher must

decide the type of sample he will use i.e., he must
decide about the technique to be used in selecting
the items for the sample. In fact, this technique or
procedure stands for the sample design itself.

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CRITERIA OF SELECTING A SAMPLING PROCEDURE

 Researcher made incorrect inferences due to

systematic bias and sampling.
 A systematic bias results from errors in the

sampling procedures, and it cannot be

reduced or eliminated by increasing the
sample size.
 At best the causes responsible for these

errors can be detected and corrected.

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 Sources of systematic bais
 Inappropriate sampling frame:
 Defective measuring device
 Non-respondents;
 Indeterminacy principle: Sometimes we find that

individuals act differently when kept under observation

than what they do when kept in non-observed
situations.
 Natural bias in the reporting of data

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Sampling errors
 Sampling errors are the random variations in the
sample estimates around the true population
parameters.
 Minimizing the sampling errors by increasing sample
size.

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CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD SAMPLE
DESIGN
a) Sample design must result in a truly representative sample.
(b) Sample design must be such which results in a small
sampling error.
(c) Sample design must be viable in the context of funds
available for the research study.
(d) Sample design must be such so that systematic bias can be
controlled in a better way.
(e) Sample should be such that the results of the sample study
can be applied, in general, for the universe with a
reasonable level of confidence.

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Basic type of Sampling desgn

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 Non-probability sampling
 In such a design, personal element has a great chance of
entering into the selection of the sample.
 The investigator may select a sample which shall yield
results favourable to his point of view and if that
happens, the entire inquiry may get vitiated.
 Thus, there is always the danger of bias entering into this
type of sampling technique

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Non-probability sampling

A. QUOTA SAMPLE

B. THE JUDGMENT SAMPLE

C. THE CONVENIENCE SAMPLE

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Probability sampling technique
 Probability Sampling
Probability sampling is also known as ‘random
sampling’ or ‘chance sampling’. Under this sampling
design, every item of the universe has an equal chance
of inclusion in the sample.

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Types of probability sampling

A) Simple Random Sampling :

 It gives each element in the population an equal probability of getting into the sample; and
all choices are independent of one another
 It gives each possible sample combination an equal probability of being
chosen.
◦ Example: we take a certain finite population consisting
of six elements (say a, b, c, d, e, f ) i.e., N = 6. Suppose
that we want to take a sample of size n = 3 from it.

B) Systematic sampling

C) Cluster sampling (Area sampling )

D) Stratified sampling

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 Cont’d

The following three questions are highly relevant in the

context of stratified sampling:-

(a) How to form strata?

(b) How should items be selected from each stratum?

(c) How many items be selected from each stratum or

how to allocate the sample size of each stratum???

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let us suppose that we want a sample of size n = 30 to
be drawn from a population of size N = 8000 which is
divided into three strata of size N1 = 4000, N2 = 2400
and N3 = 1600. Adopting proportional allocation, we
shall get the sample sizes as under for the different
strata:

 For strata with N1 = 4000, we have P1 = 4000/8000

and hence n1 = n . P1 = 30 (4000/8000) = 15
 Similarly, for strata with N2 = 2400, we have n2 = n .
P2 = 30 (2400/8000) = 9,
 and for strata with N3 = 1600, we have n3 = n . P3 =

30 (1600/8000) = 6.
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Exercise
 A population is divided into three strata so
that N1 = 5000, N2 = 2000 and N3 = 3000.
Respective standard deviations are: s1 = 15,
s2 = 18 and s3 = 5.
 How should a sample of size n = 84 be

allocated to the three strata, if we want

optimum allocation using disproportionate
sampling design?

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CONT….
E)Multi-stage sampling:
 Multi-stage sampling implies that there are multiple
stages in the sampling process
 The number of stages can be numerous, although it is
rare to have more than 3

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END

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