There are advantages and disadvantages to using different sampling methods in social research. This article describes them.
1. The advantage of the household survey method is that it provides a sample of the entire population of a country or region. Such a survey could be useful if you want to know what people are thinking throughout the area, such as getting opinions on an issue to help a politician take a position on a new park bill or park improvements. This type of survey could also be useful for the government to use to find out people’s preferences for a recreational facility for the area, such as whether they would prefer a zoo or nature park and who would be interested in going.
A disadvantage of the household survey is that it is time-consuming and labor-intensive trying to obtain a sample of all members of the population. Additionally, while most organizations conducting national surveys seek to use multi-stage and cluster sampling to make the sample collection process more manageable, there may be problems in doing so. For example, if researchers try to cut costs by interviewing a certain number of people on the street and choosing every nth house, they could make the number of clusters too small to include a full range of people in the area. Then, too, the researchers might find that people in certain types of households might not want to participate in the survey, especially those from lower-class households, skewing the sample to have a higher percentage of middle- and middle-income people. represented than their percentage in the population.
2. The advantage of sampling for a site, user or visitor survey is that you can get feedback from a population that is actually using a facility or visiting a site. Another advantage is that randomness can be controlled by having a trained interviewer select the nth person who passes the interviewer or the nth person who passes the interviewer after concluding an interview with the previously selected person. This approach can also be adapted for a quota sample, where the interviewer is asked to get the nth person for a number of categories, and as each category is completed, the interviewer stops searching for someone for that category.
A disadvantage of this approach is that an interviewer may not follow interview selection procedures and may select someone who is convenient for them or avoid other types of interviewees that are more difficult to find or interview. Another downside is that the types of people who come at different times of the day can vary, such as having more families with children who come during the day and teens who come to an amusement park at night. As a result, the sampling could become unrepresentative unless it is weighted or a quota sampling method is used to balance different types of people. Another downside could be the problem of unresponsiveness, if the people entering or leaving the site do not want to be disturbed: those who are entering because they are eager to enjoy the site and those who are leaving because they are eager to do so. get home. Yet another disadvantage of using a questionnaire is that many respondents may not complete the questionnaire and those who do may not be representative of the entire group, particularly if there is a high rate of return. Also, site staff may not deliver questionnaires carefully, and it can be difficult to supervise these staff as their priority is helping visitors and guests, rather than helping with a survey.
3. The advantage of sampling for a street survey is that it can be good to know who is using a particular street, shopping or tourist area, much like a site, user or visitor survey. This street survey can be combined with a quota sampling approach to obtain information on different types of users or visitors who come to the site at different times, if the background of the population in the area is known.
However, the downside to a street survey, much like a site, user or visitor survey, is that people on the street may be busy and not wanting to take the time to participate in an interview or not interested in completing an interview. questionnaire. As a result, the sample will be biased as a result of differences between those who answer questionnaires or complete a questionnaire and those who do not. Another disadvantage in some areas is the possible danger of stopping and interviewing people on the street. For example, in a downtown area, people may be suspicious of outsiders, thinking they may be government workers or undercover police officers, so they do not want to answer questions and there could be a danger to interviewers or questioners. as they can be threatened or attacked. Another disadvantage is that you cannot use a quota method if you do not know the background of the people in the area to establish the quotas. Another downside is that if people don’t want to take the time to answer a survey on the street, very few will respond to a take-home survey and return the survey, so you will have a low response rate. An attempt to conduct an email quota survey has the downside that not only can there be a low response rate, but certain types of people are less likely to use email, such as low-income people. However, weighting is often used with these types of surveys to obtain a sample that more closely corresponds to the percentage of the general population.
4. The advantage of sampling for a mail survey using regular mailings is that it can be a completely random large survey, since mail is generally sent to all members of the population. However, a downside is that mailing a survey to a large group can be expensive, especially as postage rates have increased. Another downside is that there is typically a high non-response rate to mailed questionnaires, and those who respond may be different from those who do. While the cost factor can be reduced substantially with an email survey, the downside to doing an email survey is that those with emails or those most likely to respond to emails may be different from the population. not responding. as well as the small population that does not have e-mails, generally due to their lower income.