Reference no: EM133998973

Question

Sampling theory is the study of relationships existing between a population and samples drawn from the population. Studying the whole population can be difficult, so, enough samples are taken from the population for the research which can be generalized. The whole population is called target population and the extracted sample is called the study population (Elfil and Negida. 2017). The purpose of selecting the sample is that they can represent the whole population. The process of selecting the sample from the whole population is sampling method. Two major sampling methods are probability and non-probability method.

In probability sampling method the samples are chosen randomly. Every element has 50/50chance of being selected. For example, if the researcher wants to study the 1000 target population, they may choose 100 samples randomly through random sampling methods. Non-probability sampling is the method of selecting the samples from the subjective method like convenience sampling and snowball sampling. For example, if the researcher wants to study the slum lifestyles, they will directly go nearest slum in the area or ask the slum population from their recommendation.

Generalizability is the subjective judgement made by the researcher after the end of their study. Generalizability is established based on the research findings which can be represention of the target population. Its important to establish the generalizability of the study because it serves as the evidence in the health care decision making (Burchett et al., 2020). This helps in deciding whether the study could be implemented in other settings or populations, with similar effects. For example, if nurse researchers are looking for the ways to prevent infection in the hospital, they can take study population and with adequate evidence, can generalize to the whole patient population.