PRACTICAL
RESEARCH 1
LESSON 2: UNDERSTANDING DATA AND WAYS
TO
SYSTEMATICALLY COLLECT DATA
POPULATION
– the complete group of people,
animals or objects that have the
same characteristics that the
SAMPLE
– a group of individuals that
represent the population. The
process of choosing a sample is
called sampling
STEPS IN
SAMPLING
1. Identify the
population of interest
If you want to focus your study on the reasons
why teenagers are dropping out from schools,
then what will be your population of interest?
When choosing your population of interest,
you should think WHO will be directly affected
1. Identify the
population of interest
In this case, your population of interest should
be teachers and out of school youths.
However, it still too broad to say that teachers
and youths will be your population because
there are lots of schools in our province alone.
Therefore, we need to proceed to the next
2. Specify a
sampling frame
It’s very difficult to say that your population
will be teachers and out of school youths.
Teachers from what school? Out of school
youth from what place? If we simply say those
are your population, then it will be difficult for
us to identify who will be your respondents.
2. Specify a
sampling frame
Therefore, we need to specify WHO we want
to include in our study. You may want to
choose your sampling frame to a place where
you are residing so that it will be easier to
gather respondents.
2. Specify a
sampling frame
For example: I am currently residing at Valencia City,
Bukidnon. I would want my sampling frame to be taken from a
population in Valencia City, Bukidnon. More specifically, I
would like to take samples at Valencia National High School
because it is near where I am. Thus, my samples will be taken
from teachers working at Valencia National High school and
3. Specify a
sampling method
There are many types of sampling method for
qualitative research. Here are some of the
most common and easiest sampling methods
to be used. You can either choose one method
to use or have a mix of two or more methods:
Snowball sampling
–this is done by asking relevant people if they know someone
who will be willing to participate in your research. You can put
criteria or other qualifications for your respondents. You can
use social media for “crowd sourcing” or ask someone in your
community on who is willing and qualified to participate in
your research.
Opportunistic
sampling
–this is a type of sampling that takes sample
or respondents that are readily available. For
example, you may choose respondents in your
community where you can just pick anyone
within a close range.
Convenience
sampling
–using this kind of sampling technique
involves selecting people that are the most
convenient for you as a researcher. You may
use someone you already know as respondent
because it will save you time and effort in
looking for someone who will participate in
4. Determine your
sample size
A book on high school research by Clemente
R. F., Julaton A. B. E. and Orleans A. V.
discusses how to determine your sample
sizes. There can be two approaches to
determine your sample size:
4. Determine your
sample size
a. You determine your sample size depending
on whether your data will reach its saturation
point.
What does saturation
point of a data?
When you conduct face to face interviews with
your respondents, you may notice that there
will be patterns and similar answers to your
questions as you increase the number of
people that you are interviewing.
What does saturation
point of a data?
If you realize that there are no new answers
and the pattern seems to be the same on,
let’s say, the 10th interview, then it can be
assumed that it will be your sample size
because you have reached the saturation
point of your data.
4. Determine your
sample size
b. Another way to choose sample size depends
on the type of approach that you are going to
use for your research. It was cited from
Creswell (2013) that 1-10 subjects are
recommended for phenomenology.
4. Determine your
sample size
Dukes (1984) stated that there should be 20-
30 individuals for grounded theory and
Charmaz (2006) indicated that there should be
4-5 respondents for case studies and a single
culture-sharing group for ethnography.
5. Implement the
plan
If you follow the steps correctly, with a little
help and guidance, you can now implement
your sampling techniques and select
respondents that can be a part of your
research. It is important to take note of all the
details because you need to write it down in
THANK YOU!
Dotusme, Niña
Tatoy, Mary Jane
Tam, Benedict
Saladaga, John Niño
