Free Research Methods Essay Example

There are several sampling designs such as simple random sampling, systematic sampling, stratified sampling and, cluster sampling as well as purposive and snowball sampling. This paper discusses how purposive and snowball sampling can be used in sampling human population. Purposive sampling is a non-probability sampling method. This means that it does not base its findings on probability but rather on a well analyzed research. Snow ball sampling method is also a non-probability sampling. Non-probability sampling methods are applied in the estimation of the human population as it is usually difficult to determine the population of human basing your sampling method on probability.
/> Purposive sampling involves specifically drawn knowledge about the population’s characteristics in order to serve specific needs of the study question; for example, how many married men live in a certain geographical region. It involves limiting the size of the sample to get the perfect characteristics of the general population. If for example it’s a research based on getting the feedback of the people when it comes to security of a certain place, then different samples should be collected from different areas and be used to provide information on the general place
Snowball sampling, on the other hand, can be used for the same purpose and come up with almost similar result. It involves identifying other members of the population and asking them to identify another member. It is mostly used when it is difficult to identify members of the population.
The strength of the research methods is that they are more accurate compared to the sampling methods that tend to rely on probability. Their findings are accurate unlike the probability based sampling methods. The undoing part of the methods is that they tend to rely so much on the information they get from other members of the population.