Does anyone have any creative class activities that will illustrate sampling
strategies and challenges for qualitative research methods?
I am teaching a doctoral level qualitative research methods course and the students
enjoy interactive, classroom based activities. This week's lesson is on sampling in
qualitative research. I would like to ask if anyone have any creative class activities that
will illustrate sampling strategies and challenges for qualitative research methods?
For example: Investigating doctoral students' attitudes towards chocolate.
PURPOSIVE SAMPLING: Pick someone without much thought (e.g. front row?) and
ask what they think about chocolate. Record on the board / flipchart (summarise with a
word or phrase e.g. 'love it' / 'enjoy' etc). Ask someone else - record again - if another
positive, record nearby (with another keyword or just a tick etc beside the first one).
Keep asking people, sort of 'quick fire'. Loosely group/sort responses as you place them
on the board (this is illustrating - simply - how you are analysing the data as you go and
noticing what you are getting). I can imagine you might get quite a lot of people saying
'love it' and maybe some saying 'hmm, it's okay but not my favourite' etc ... after
collecting a number of responses you can look at the balance / coverage and say
something like, "Okay, lots of positive and neutral responses here ... I don't really need
any more of those ... is there anyone here who *doesn't* like chocolate?". This
illustrates how you analyse the sample and then deliberately seek further respondents
who might offer something different / check to see if there are any contradictory cases
etc out there.
CASE STUDY: Start again. Pick one or two people. Sit them on chairs at the front and
have a longer conversation with them about chocolate. When did they first experience
it? What does it mean to them? Who introduced them to chocolate? Explore their
preferences within the general category of chocolate ... etc. Illustrates the small sample
size but greater depth.
SATURATION: Start again. Ask someone where they get their chocolate from. Record
on board (e.g. supermarket, service station ...). Keep asking as in purposive example
above but at the appropriate time say "Okay, you're all telling me places I've already got
here. I'm not going to bother asking anyone else. I think we must have covered it."
QUOTA SAMPLING: Say, "Okay, I need three people who love chocolate deeply, three
people who can 'take it or leave it', and three people who really don't like chocolate."
Assemble the group of volunteers ... they are your 'sample'. Illustrates the balance
between pre-determined categories of interest, but you can show by just looking at the 9
people how the sample group may not be 'representative' of the whole class in other
ways e.g. gender, age etc.
SNOWBALL SAMPLING: Put a numbered list of the class's names (first names only) on
the board - if a large class, print this ahead of time to stick up!! Otherwise just quickly
write their names down. Say, "I'm working on my sampling - I've already asked you all,
so I've interviewed XX (number of students in class) doctoral students but I really need
YY (some bigger number) doctoral students in my sample. Do any of you know anyone
else who is a doctoral student? Can you put me in touch with them?" Students will give
names (first names only for the purpose of the exercise) of friends / people they have
met who are also doctoral students but not in this class. Illustrates the idea of using
people within your existing sample to put you in touch with other potential participants
who fit your criteria (in this case doctoral students).
For example: Investigating doctoral students' attitudes towards chocolate.
PURPOSIVE SAMPLING: Pick someone without much thought (e.g. front row?) and
ask what they think about chocolate. Record on the board / flipchart (summarise with a
word or phrase e.g. 'love it' / 'enjoy' etc). Ask someone else - record again - if another
positive, record nearby (with another keyword or just a tick etc beside the first one).
Keep asking people, sort of 'quick fire'. Loosely group/sort responses as you place them
on the board (this is illustrating - simply - how you are analysing the data as you go and
noticing what you are getting). I can imagine you might get quite a lot of people saying
'love it' and maybe some saying 'hmm, it's okay but not my favourite' etc ... after
collecting a number of responses you can look at the balance / coverage and say
something like, "Okay, lots of positive and neutral responses here ... I don't really need
any more of those ... is there anyone here who *doesn't* like chocolate?". This
illustrates how you analyse the sample and then deliberately seek further respondents
who might offer something different / check to see if there are any contradictory cases
etc out there.
CASE STUDY: Start again. Pick one or two people. Sit them on chairs at the front and
have a longer conversation with them about chocolate. When did they first experience
it? What does it mean to them? Who introduced them to chocolate? Explore their
preferences within the general category of chocolate ... etc. Illustrates the small sample
size but greater depth.
SATURATION: Start again. Ask someone where they get their chocolate from. Record
on board (e.g. supermarket, service station ...). Keep asking as in purposive example
above but at the appropriate time say "Okay, you're all telling me places I've already got
here. I'm not going to bother asking anyone else. I think we must have covered it."
QUOTA SAMPLING: Say, "Okay, I need three people who love chocolate deeply, three
people who can 'take it or leave it', and three people who really don't like chocolate."
Assemble the group of volunteers ... they are your 'sample'. Illustrates the balance
between pre-determined categories of interest, but you can show by just looking at the 9
people how the sample group may not be 'representative' of the whole class in other
ways e.g. gender, age etc.
SNOWBALL SAMPLING: Put a numbered list of the class's names (first names only) on
the board - if a large class, print this ahead of time to stick up!! Otherwise just quickly
write their names down. Say, "I'm working on my sampling - I've already asked you all,
so I've interviewed XX (number of students in class) doctoral students but I really need
YY (some bigger number) doctoral students in my sample. Do any of you know anyone
else who is a doctoral student? Can you put me in touch with them?" Students will give
names (first names only for the purpose of the exercise) of friends / people they have
met who are also doctoral students but not in this class. Illustrates the idea of using
people within your existing sample to put you in touch with other potential participants
who fit your criteria (in this case doctoral students).
