Simple Random Sampling - 6 Best Strategies in Academic Research

The research sample in academic research plays an important role. How do you select a sample for your research study? Yes, you are right that by applying one of the available sampling methods, you can select and analyse a sample. Now, among those available methods, the simple random sampling method is of utmost importance. It is the method which is most commonly used in academic research due to many reasons, which are going to be part of today’s article later.

For now, my question is: Do you have an idea of this sampling method? Do you know the strategies to carry out an effective, simple random sampling? Probably not. It is why today’s article is about this sampling method. There will be a discussion of the top 6 strategies that are currently in use to do such kind of sampling in academic research. However, I would like to open the discussion by defining this sampling method first. So, let’s get started and formally introduces the random sampling technique.

 

What Is A Simple Random Sampling Technique?

Simple random sampling is a type of probability sampling technique in which each subset of the population that you intend to study has an equal chance to participate in the research. Each sample should be selected in a random manner. It is because this is the only way you can have an unbiased representation of a group. When working on the academic research project, the researcher takes a small group of samples or units from the entire population and only studies those samples to draw conclusions about the entire population.

For example, as a researcher, you want to know about the career goals of 10,000 students registered at your university. It is almost impossible that you can study all the 10,000 students and collect their responses. Therefore, it is better to employ the technique of simple random sampling. Choose some of the samples from the entire 10,000 students.

 

Top 6 Strategies For Simple Random Sampling

Reading the information above, you now know what this sampling technique is and its example. This knowledge about this method is not enough to carry out the sampling procedure. To select samples from the population, you need to have knowledge of the top strategies that are common in academic research. Therefore, a brief description of the top 6 of those strategies is as follows:

1. Define The Desired Population

First things first, start the sampling method by defining the population that you want to study in your academic research. Do you know what it means by population? It is the group that you want to learn about, confirm a hypothesis, and determine a statistical outcome. The aim of this step is to see what population you will be studying and whether that group is able to answer the research questions or not.

Example. I wish to learn how large companies in the UK have performed over the last 20 years. The population of my academic research is the large companies in the UK as determined by S&P 500.

 

2. Choose The Sample Size Of Your Research

Before choosing a specific sample for your academic research, it is important to define the total sample size of your research. It means that you should define how many population units in total you will be studying. This choice of the sample size depends on a number of factors, like available resources to research the population.

Example. My sample size will be the top 20 companies from the S&P 500.

 

3. List The Population

The next thing after determining the sample size is the listing of the population. Whatever the number of your sample size, just list down all the population units. You can list it down on a piece of paper or on your computer. To list down this information, you may need to get some sort of permission from the concerned department. For example, you want to analyse the top 20 academic companies in the UK. To list down your research, you may need to contact them and get permission to research them.

 

4. Assign Numerical Values To Listed Units

Step no. 4 includes assigning numerical values to the listed units. The simple random sampling assigns a unique numerical number to each population unit. Please note that this number is very important, and it should be a unique number as it will also help you in the analysis process. For example, in the case of large companies above, you can give a number to each company in alphabetical order or any other order.

 

5. Select Random Values

The most important step in simple random sampling has arrived. In the running example of this article, you have selected a sample size of the top 20 companies from the S&P 500. Now, what do you do next? In the next step, you select 20 random values from the total population. As the total number of large companies in the UK is 500. So, these random values will run from 1 to 500. Now, you can select any of the 20 companies from the list using random sampling.

 

6. Identify The Sample And Study It

Once you are done with step 5, the next step 6 is the last and asks you to identify the sample and study. As you have selected the 20 random large companies in the previous step, identify them from the main list of companies. Let’s suppose, in your simple random sampling, you have selected the 11th company. So, go to the main list and note down the name of the 11th company. The same goes for other random selections.

 

Conclusion

Conclusively, the technique of simple random sampling is about selecting samples from a large population randomly so that there is no element of bias. To carry out this process, you must follow the top 6 strategies mentioned above. These strategies are your guarantee towards a successful random sampling. So employ them and analyse the samples carefully.