Bell, Bryman, and Harley: Research Project Guide

Table of Contents

1. Preparing yourself to do research
2. What do I want to research exactly?
3. The research process
   1. The research stance/philosophy
   2. The research strategy
   3. The research design & using a case study design
   4. Ethical considerations in doing research
   5. Literature, reading skills and key words
   6. Secondary data and online sources
   7. Access and sampling issues
   8. Data collection
   9. Pilot studies
   10. Implementing the research design
   11. Analysis of results: quantitative and qualitative
4. Writing up your research report

Access and sampling issues

Chapters 9 & 13

• Who do you need to study in order to investigate your research questions?
• How easily can you gain access to a sampling frame?
  • You need to confirm at the earliest opportunity that you have the necessary permission to conduct your work. This is sometimes a prerequisite of ethical approval.
  • (Also see page 209)
• What kind of sampling strategy will you employ?
  • e.g. probability sampling, quota sampling, theoretical sampling, convenience sampling
• Can you justify your choice of sampling method?
• How will you select your sample size?
  • With small or targeted samples, how have you selected your participants?
  • (Also see pages 195-197, 397-399)

Sample Size and Confidence Interval Calculators:

www.raosoft.com/samplesize.html - from Raosoft

www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm - from Creative Research Systems

To see video clips of students talking about access and sampling issues, click here

Exercise: sample size

1

Question Suggest an appropriate sample size to measure a population with respect to the percentage of persons owing two cars in a family in Huddersfield. We may have a rough idea of the likely percentage and wish to sample to be accurate within 5% points and to be 95% confident of this accuracy. Generally for percentages, sample size may be calculated using the formula: Where: n = sample number n = estimate proportion q = non-estimated proportion SE = standard error of percentage Consider the standard error of a percentage. Assume we guess that the percentage ownership of two car families is 30% Then standard error of a percentage is: But 2 (SE(p)) must equal 5% (the level of accuracy required) i.e.: Rearranging: i.e.: Sample size = 336