Sampling Methods: How Do We Choose Them?

 Discuss in small groups which methods are used in different fields of

study
o Content analysis
o Discourse analysis
o Deconstruction
o Narrative analysis
o Thick description
o Field work
o Participant observation
o In-depth interviews
o Phenomenological analysis
o Questionnaires
 Methodology – rules, principles and procedures for the production of
knowledge
 Method – concrete approaches chosen to carry out a particular piece of
research
 Choosing methods
o Text and people (primary and secondary)
o Research/aim
o Research subject
o Skills
o Feasibility/material conditions: equipment, software, finances,
time
 o Ethics
 Quantitative vs. qualitative
o Quantitative – society as a natural world
o Qualitative – society has its own logic
 Qualitative methods are used more in gender studies
 Sampling, validity, reliability
o Validity – it does reflect some sort of external reality
o Statistical population – a large se of objects which is of interest
as a whole
o Sampling – subset of objects drawn from a population
o Reliability – replicability or stability of research finding
 Sampling in qualitative methods
o Purposeful sampling
 strategy based on the identification and selection of
information-rich cases
 don’t go for quality but for quantity
o strategies
 how to recruit people
 snowball strategy, typical case, critical case, homogeneity
(reducing variation), maximum variation, convenience,
availability
o theoretical sampling
 happens in the process of collecting data, not before
o theoretical saturation
 new cases do not bring new information

2
 Validity in Qualitative methods
o Don’t generalise large groups of people
o Reflexivity
 Reflections on how the researcher’s own position,
emotions/involvement could have influenced results
o Validation by respondents
 Researcher discusses with informants their interpretations
and ideas
o Triangulation
 Support of data obtained through one method by other
sources of data
 Reliability in qualitative methods
o Transparency
o Methodological coherence
o Consistency
o Authenticity/trustworthiness

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