How to determine whether a convenience sample represents the population.

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Maren Alitagtag 

 

2 posts

Re:Topic 3 DQ 1

Suppose you are interested in the behaviors of college professors that have high ratings of student satisfaction. The research goal is to identify the teaching behaviors of these successful professors so that these behaviors can be built into the curricula of doctoral leadership programs. The sample for this study will consist of 10 randomly selected professors who received high end-of-course survey scores. You want to use a case study design that requires at least two sources of data. What data collection instruments will be the most appropriate to address this topic? Why?

One of the approaches that I would consider first would be to have direct observation of classroom time with all ten professors. The reason I would do this is because it is important to see the environment where the learning is happening, and assess the way the students respond in the learning environment.  I would further work to include more than one observer in order to try and eliminate observer bias as well.  I would also like to incorporate semi-structured or structured interviews, to see how the teachers evaluate themselves in their teaching, and what things they assess to be the reasons for getting the high ratings.  Again, there can be some bias in either a person’s own self-assessment, or that of the interviewer, so it is also something to consider when looking at results.  Finally, I would also like to do some interviewing, likely semi-structured, of some of the students, to see why they are assessing the professors highly.  I would find that input would be very helpful to the gathering of data regarding what is happening within the classroom that results in higher student ratings.  One case study I found that examined classroom learning assessed the teacher and their planning, the observation of a classroom via video recording, and an after-class interview with the teacher (Hasni et al, 2016).  I really appreciate the makeup of this study, and feel a pre and post instruction interview could also be helpful.

Hasni, A., Roy, P., & Dumais, N. (2016). The Teaching and Learning of Diffusion and Osmosis: What Can We Learn from Analysis of Classroom Practices? A Case Study. EURASIA Journal Of Mathematics, Science & Technology Education, 12(6), 1507-1531.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Re:Topic 3 DQ 1

 

Deborah Hill

Suppose you are interested in the behaviors of college professors that have high ratings of student satisfaction. The research goal is to identify the teaching behaviors of these successful professors so that these behaviors can be built into the curricula of doctoral leadership programs. The sample for this study will consist of 10 randomly selected professors who received high end-of-course survey scores. You want to use a case study design that requires at least two sources of data. What data collection instruments will be the most appropriate to address this topic? Why?

Interviewing is one of various qualitative data resources appropriate for uncovering the meaning behind unxeplained answers provided in questionnaires. The quality of face to face removes guest work from vague responses that provide yes, no, agree, and disagree choices that don’t clarify how, why or what causes the effects  of positive results (Dyregrov, Dieserud, Hjelmeland, Straiton, Rasmussen, Knizek, & Leenaars, 2011). Without the knowledge of specifics, it would be difficult to transfer unknown strategies to doctoral leadership.

In addition to the need for in-depth understanding, qualitative research, benefits from surveys. The survey is a systematic method for gathering information serves the purpose of constructing quantity descriptions from sample populations (Fuller, Pearson, Peters, & Anderson, 2015).

The selected group of 10 teachers show the highest end of course scores, may be used to understand the significant differences between high-end scored teachers compared to surveys of teachers with low scores. Populations under surveys include inhabitants of small towns, or members of a specific category like teachers to expose characteristics, but, does not observe social interactions or communications between individuals (Fuller, Pearson, Peters, & Anderson, 2015). Surveys such as, end of semester evalauations by students offers insight into teacher proficiencies, student/teacher relationships, skills and student’s anonyamous appraisal. Student appraisals express willigness to recommend the instructor to others as well as identify and develop training services for faculty. Interviews studies rely on information provided by both direct and indirect methodologies that may extract strategies to create foundations for best practices in doctoral leadership. The combined data collection resources demonstrate balance between interview and survey capabilities and limitations that delivers clarity and meaning to participant responses.

References

Dyregrov, K. M., Dieserud, G., Hjelmeland, H. M., Straiton, M., Rasmussen, M. L., Knizek, B. L., & Leenaars, A. A. (2011). Meaning-Making Through Psychological Autopsy Interviews: The Value of Participating in Qualitative Research for Those Bereaved by Suicide. Death Studies, 35(8), 685-710. doi:10.1080/07481187.2011.553310

Fuller, T., Pearson, M., Peters, J., & Anderson, R. (2015). What Affects Authors’ and Editors’ Use of Reporting Guidelines? Findings from an Online Survey and Qualitative Interviews.  Plos ONE ,  10 (4), 1-21. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0121585

Benjamin Garrison 

 

1 posts

Re:Topic 3 DQ 2

It is not unusual for researchers to use a convenience sample for their study. Consider a study in which the researcher would like to determine how parents working with their children on homework influence the child’s school grades. The researcher may consider recruiting friends and relatives to participate in your study because it will be easier to obtain their permission for data collection. What might be some of the limitations of this sampling approach? What are some potential ethical implications to using a convenience sample?

A convenience sample may not represent the population that the research is trying to study. In this convenience sample case, the researcher will most likely get subjects from the same community due to their connection with the school. Most of their friends and relatives probably live in the same area. This would limit the diversity of the sample creating some ethical problems. For instance, most of the subject will probably be from similar settings, either inner-city or a rural school. This means that the results of the study could only be applied to a similar group of people and not the population in general. This would be the main limitation of using a convenience sample.

Owen, Bantum, Criswell, Bazzo, Gorlick and Stanton (2014) conducted a research project that looked at the difference between a convenience sample and systematic sample. They used internet participants as a convenience sample and volunteers from a large cancer registry as the systematic sample. They found several significant differences between the two samples. These difference, depending on which sample they would have chosen for a regular study, could have caused them to reject the wrong hypothesis. Their research highlights the dangers of using a convenience sample to make a generalization about the population.

However, there are ways to determine if the convenience sample is representative of the entire population. Sousa, Zauszniewski and Musil (2004) presented a method for determining if the sample is representative of the population. In their paper, they use statistics and knowledge about the population to determine if there are differences between the sample and the population. However, this is not a perfect method and the sample may still be representative in some ways and not representative in other ways.

Owen, J., Bantum, E., Criswell, K., Bazzo, J., Gorlick, A., & Stanton, A. (2014). Representativeness of two sampling procedures for an internet intervention targeting cancer-related distress: a comparison of convenience and registry samples. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 37(4), 630-641. doi:10.1007/s10865-013-9509-6

Sousa, V., Zauszniewski, J., & Musil, C. (2004). Research brief. How to determine whether a convenience sample represents the population. Applied Nursing Research, 17(2), 130-133.

 
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