Chris Brittain

Market Research
Dr. Coleman
7/5/2020
Sampling Plan
Introduction
My project is to assess and evaluate how the COVID-19 pandemic may impact the
educational experiences of college students. Moreover, it is to investigate how the pandemic may
affect student’s expectations and concerns regarding the quality of their education. The data
being collected will assist colleges and universities in determining if they need to adapt their
offerings and how they should adapt if necessary.
Ideal Sampling Plan
In an ideal world, the target population is all college students in the USA. I would
randomly survey college students across the united states. I would include students from all US
colleges. i.e. public and private institutions, community colleges and 4-years institutions. I would
contact the administrators at those institutions to ask for lists of their students. I would ask those
institutions to include an email and mailing addresses to contact their students.
The ideal sample of students selected would be a cluster sample. They would be clustered
by the colleges and universities themselves. Moreover, the ideal sample size would be at least
16641 people. I calculated this with 99% confidence interval with +/- 1% precision ( 2.58^2
*.5*.5 / .01^2). I would also plan for a fair degree of nonresponse so I would attempt to
communicate with at least 21633 people. I would email selected participants the survey to be
completed online. There would be a link to take the students to the survey. To encourage
students to participate, we would provide them with a lottery ticket once they have completed the
survey. Participants would have a chance to win gift cards for Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and
Half Priced Books.
Real World Sampling Plan
However, my sampling plan would need to be considerably adapted for real world
implications. The target population would remain the same. However, my sampling frame and
sampling plan would both be considerably modified due to the following constraints…
1. I do not have a sufficient budget of time or money to fund this project.
2. I do not have the legitimate authority to persuade institutions to provide student lists
from which participants would be selected.
As a result of these limitations, my sampling frame would very likely include
predominantly Pitt students and other schools where I know people who attend them. My sample
would be a convenience sample. Due to there being no element of randomness, this would
inadvertently bias my sample by selecting people who I know who may be similar to me in
interests, beliefs, etc. A potential implication of this is that business students could be
overrepresented in the survey. Moreover, people who have from this region would also be
overrepresented. To correct this, I could ask a few friends attending other colleges and
universities to spread it among their friends to try and diversify the respondents more.
This survey will be conducted online via email. I create the survey on google and share
the link via email. This should help protect participant anonymity. Due to the previously
mentioned constraints on the scope of this project and authority I have, it will be difficult to get
large number of participants in the survey. My goal is to get 68 people to respond to the survey.
This has been calculated using a 90% confidence interval with +/- 10% precision.