Sampling Procedure

and the Sample

Remember when you were taught how
to write your scope and delimitation,
you stated the subjects, participants, or
respondents of your study. You also
described their characteristics which
qualify them to be the source of your
research data.
 The next question you must answer is, how many
of the subjects, participants, or respondents
should be selected as a source of data? This
lesson will teach you how to describe sampling
procedures in quantitative research. Note that the
sampling procedure should be aligned to your
chosen research design. Since you have already
decided the research design of your study, then
you are ready for this lesson.
Population and Sample
The first step in determining the
sample size is identifying the
population of the topic of interest.
Population

It is the totality of all the objects,

elements, persons, and characteristics
under consideration. It is understood
that this population possesses common
characteristics about which the
research aims to explore.
Two Types of Population

TargetPopulation
Accessible Population
The actual population is the target
population.
This refers to the entire group of
individuals or elements that the
researcher aims to study or
generalize the findings to. It is the
broader population that fully fits
the research objectives.
Example:

 Forexample, if a study focuses on Senior

High School students enrolled in the
Science, Technology, Engineering, and
Mathematics (STEM) strand in the Division
of Cagayan de Oro City, all such students
across the entire division would constitute
the target population. Researchers would
ideally want their findings to apply to this
whole group.
Accessible population is the
portion of the population in which the
researcher has reasonable access
While the target population is the ideal
group, researchers often cannot access
all of them due to practical limitations
like time, resources, or location. The
accessible population is the portion
of the target population that the
researcher can reasonably reach and
study.
Example

Ifthe study is conducted at a specific

school, such as Marayon Science High
School – X, then the STEM students at
this school would be the accessible
population, representing a smaller,
more reachable subset of the larger
target population.
When the whole population is
too costly or time-consuming or
impractical to consider, then, a
sample representative is
identified.
Sampling
 It pertains to the systematic process of
selecting the group to be analyzed in the
research study.
 The goal is to get information from a group
that represents the target population.
 Once a good sample is obtained, the
generalizability and applicability of findings
increases.
For example, if a researcher wants to
study the academic performance of all
Senior High School STEM students in a
city, it's impractical to survey every single
student. Instead, they select a sample—
perhaps 10% of the students from different
schools—to represent the whole group. If
the sampling method is systematic and
well-designed, the findings can reliably
reflect the larger population.
The representative subset of
the population refers to the
sample.
All the 240 Senior High School
Students enrolled in Science,
Technology, Engineering, and
Mathematics (STEM) Strand in a
school, for example, constitute the
population; 60 of those students
constitute the sample.
A good sample should have
characteristics of the represented
population – characteristics that are
within the scope of the study with fair
accuracy.
 Generally, the larger the sample, the
more reliable the sample be, but still, it
will depend on the scope and delimitation
and research design of the study.
Activity 1:
Approaches in
Identifying the
Sample Size
Heuristics.
This approach refers to the
general rule or rule of the thumb
for sample size. This is the
earliest established approach for
sample sizes for different
research designs.
 Heuristics for sample size determination refer to using
general rules or guidelines—often called "rules of
thumb"—to estimate the appropriate number of
participants for a research study. This approach offers
quick and practical guidance based on past
experiences, common practices, or recommendations
for various types of research designs.

 Heuristics are particularly helpful when researchers

lack the detailed information required for more precise
sample size calculations, such as population variability
or effect sizes. While they are not as statistically
rigorous as other methods (like power analysis), they
provide a reasonable starting point, especially in
exploratory research.
Heuristicsmake it easier to decide
how many people to include in a
study, but it's better to use more
precise methods when possible,
especially for studies that need
very accurate results or have
important consequences.
Literature Review
 Another approach is by reading similar or
related literature and studies to your
current research study. Since you are done
writing your review of related literature and
studies, you might want to recall how these
studies determine sample size. Using this
approach increases the validity of your
sampling procedure.
Formulas
 These are also being established for the
computation of an acceptable sample
size. You can use different formulas
depending on what you know and do not
know about the population. These tools
are also available online. One formula for
determining sample size that you can
follow is the Cochran especially if you
have large sample size.
 For example, your study is for your city,
and you want to determine how many
households whose breadwinner work
onsite during COVID pandemic. And
you do not have enough information
about the population. In that case, you
are going to assume that a half of the
breadwinners in the city are working
onsite. So, this assumption will give
you a maximum variability, so, p = 0.5.
And you want 95% confidence, and at
least 5 percent – plus or minus –
precision; and that gives you Z values
1.96. As shown below, your sample
size will be 384.
Power Analysis
This approach is founded on the
principle of power analysis. There
are two principles you need to
consider if you are going to use this
approach: these are statistical
power and effect size.
Statistical power

 It refers to the probability of correctly

rejecting the null hypothesis, meaning
it confirms that there is a real
relationship between the independent
and dependent variables in your study.
A typical research study aims for a
power of 80%, which ensures that you
have enough participants to detect a
true effect if one exists.
Effect size

 It measures the strength or extent of the

relationship between the variables. It
shows how big the difference is between
groups in your study, such as between an
experimental group (which receives a
treatment) and a control group (which
does not). The larger the effect size, the
greater the difference between these
groups.
Example:
 if you're studying the impact of a
psychosocial intervention on students'
anxiety, and you find a difference between
their pretest and posttest scores, the effect
size will help you understand whether the
change in scores is small or large.
Statistical power, combined with effect
size, helps you determine the sample size
needed to measure this difference
accurately.
• Pretest scores are the participants'
results measured before any
intervention or experiment takes
place.
• Posttest scores are the results
measured after the intervention or
experiment.

 The difference between the pretest

and posttest scores shows the impact
or effect of the intervention.
Example:

If students took an anxiety test

before (pretest) and after
(posttest) a psychosocial
intervention, the difference in their
scores would indicate whether the
intervention had an effect on
reducing their anxiety.
Probability Sampling
in Quantitative
Research
Simple Random Sampling

It is a method of selecting

individuals where every member of
the accessible population has an
equal chance of being chosen. This
ensures that the sample is
unbiased and represents the
population fairly.
There are several methods for
conducting simple random
sampling:
 Fishbowl Technique: Names or numbers are placed in a
container, and selections are made by randomly drawing
them.

 Roulette Wheel: A similar approach to the fishbowl but

using a spinning wheel.

 Table of Random Numbers: A table of pre-generated

random numbers can be used to select participants.

 Additionally, random sampling can be done online. Tools like

the one available at randomizer.org allow you to practice
generating random samples quickly and efficiently.
Simple Random Sampling
 Is the most basic random sampling wherein each
element in the population has an equal
probability of being selected.
Stratified Random Sampling

It is similar to simple random

sampling in that it gives all
members of the population an
equal chance of being selected.
However, before selecting the
samples, the population is divided
into strata or groups based on
specific characteristics, such as
gender, age, or grade level
 Once the population is divided into these
subgroups (strata), a random sample is taken
from each group. This method ensures that each
subgroup is well represented in the final sample.

 Stratified random sampling is especially useful

when the research variables are grouped or
classified, as it allows the researcher to analyze
the differences between these subgroups more
effectively. For example, if your study focuses on
students' academic performance, you might
divide the population by gender or grade level,
ensuring that both males and females or
different grade levels are fairly represented in
the sample.
You can simply follow the steps from this
given example:

A population of 600 Junior High School

students includes 180 Grade 7, 160
Grade 8, 150 Grade 9, and 110 Grade
10. If the computed sample size is 240,
the following proportionate sampling
will be as follows.
 The number of members per subgroup is
divided by the total accessible sample size.
The percentage result of members per
subgroup will be multiplied from the
computed total sample size. After obtaining
the sample size per strata, then simple
random sampling will be done for the
selection of samples from each group.
Cluster Sampling
 This procedure is usually applied in large-scale
studies, geographical spread out of the
population is a challenge, and gathering
information will be very time-consuming. Similar
to stratified random sampling, cluster sampling
also involves grouping of the population
according to subgroups or clusters. It is a
method where multiple clusters of people from
the chosen population will be created by the
researcher in order to have homogenous
characteristics.
Systematic Sampling
 This procedure is as simple as selecting samples
every nth (example every 2nd, 5th) of the chosen
population until arriving at a desired total number
of sample size. Therefore, the selection is based
on a predetermined interval. Dividing the
population size by the sample size, the interval will
be obtained.
Example:

From a total population of 75, you have

25 samples; using systematic sampling,
you will decide to select every 3rd
person on the list of individuals.
Non- Probability
Sampling
Procedures
Snowball Sampling
- Chain –referral sampling. Samples have traits that
rare to find. This is sampling techniques, in which
existing subjects provide referrals to recruit
samples required for a research study.
  Sample units are picked for convenience but
Quota certain quotas are given to interviewers. This
Sampling design is specially used in Market Research.
Researchers choose these individuals
according to specific traits or qualities.
Application
Assessment:
"Sampling is not just about collecting
data; it's about capturing a slice of
reality that helps us understand the
whole. As we reflect on our findings,
let’s remember that every sample
tells a story, guiding us to deeper
insights and informed decisions.“

-Anonymous-
THANK YOU