Assigned Readings

Henry, G.T. (1990) Chapter 3 -- "Practical Sample Design," p. 33-59 in Practical Sampling, Sage, Thousand Oaks. E-reserve. Read by October 1.

Bernard, R.H. (2000). Social Research Methods. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks. Pages 143-172. E-reserve. Read by October 1.

Anderson, M. & Fienberg, S.E. (1999) To sample or not to sample? The 2000 census controversy. Journal of Interdisciplinary History 30(1), 1-36. Read by October 1.

Curtis, S., Gesler, W., Smith, G. & Washburn, S. (2000) Approaches to sampling and case selection in qualitative research: Examples in the geography of health. Social Science & Medicine 50, 1001-1014.

Non-Probability Samples Bring to class.

"Cheat Sheet" for Types of Samples Bring to class.

Recommended Reading
None

Discussion Guide
Sampling Discussion Guide

Other Advance Preparation
Bring a calculator to class this week and next week.

This exercise will introduce you to the literature about sampling considerations in research design. This list of documents (Sampling Readings) will be a good place to look for outside literature for your assignments. You will need to address sampling questions assignments 7-9, as well as this one. I expect you to use outside literature to develop your sampling approach. Use thihs list of readings to help find that literature. For example, if you have reason to believe that the on-response rate in your study will be high (no matter what kind of sampling was used), this poses potential problems for external validity. You should read the Barriball article "Non-response in survey research: a methodological discussion and development of an explanatory model" to address the issues of validity that the non-response rate may pose and explain what you will do about it. Exploring the literature about all of the issues connected to research design is an important component of this course. Make sure you do so. Sampling considerations are a good place to start. In order to make this easier, your course preparation for this week will provide you with a one-page summary of the key points in the articles in the "Sampling Readings" list. You will read one article. We will select those in class on Sept. 24. Prepare a one-page maximum summary of the key points about sampling that the article raises. Do NOT focus on what the study was about, the findings, etc. Rather, explain what the article teaches us about sampling. E-mail your summary to me no later than 1:00 p.m. on Monday, October 1, 2007. Use the last name of the first author for the file name. I will distribute a copy of all of the summaries to each member of our class by e-mail. I have included a sample summary that I prepared to give you an idea of what you should create.