Table 4.1 Sampling

By Research Question

Type of Sample

Eligibility

New area of research

Convenience¹

  • Anyone with characteristics of interest

New patient group

Convenience

  • People with carefully defined subgroup membership

Exploratory study

Defined generalized group

  • People who meet all eligibility criteria for full-scale research study

Causes and Effects

Random study

  • A percentage of all persons in database with complete data on variables of interest

By Data Collection Method

  

Interviews

  

Semi-structured interviews

Defined generalized group

  • With characteristics of interest

Open-ended interviews

Defined generalized group

  • With characteristics of interest

Cognitive testing interviews

Defined generalized group

  • With the same characteristics of interest as the population who will respond to the interviews or who will use the education or intervention materials

Focus groups

8-12 people who have experience and opinions on topic of research interest

  • Strict eligibility criteria by age, gender, symptom.
  • Groups with mixed characteristics often do not provide good data

Narratives

Convenience or defined

  • Respondents must be able to follow the protocol and have clearly defined experiences of interest

By Data Analysis Method

  

Content analysis

Convenience of defined

  • Depends of types of research questions and data collection method

Grounded theory analysis

Convenience or defined

  • With characteristics of interest

Narrative summary analysis

Convenience or defined

  • With characteristics of interest

Triangulation

Random sample

  • A percentage of all persons in database with complete data on variables of interest
¹ Convenience samples are members of easy to contact local populations with the characteristics of interest. There are no other eligibility requirements. Insights from convenience samples often are not generalizable.