Case Study

Explain why the researcher should choose disproportionate stratified random sampling over proportionate stratified random sampling for this study, and describe how this choice affects the representation of student-veterans in the final sample.

Case context: A psychologist is studying student experiences at a large university where student-veterans make up only 1%1\% of the total student population. The researcher wants to compare the academic adjustment of student-veterans to other student groups and ensure they can draw statistically valid, standalone conclusions about student-veterans specifically.

Question: Explain why the researcher should choose disproportionate stratified random sampling over proportionate stratified random sampling for this study, and describe how this choice affects the representation of student-veterans in the final sample.

Sample answer: The researcher should choose disproportionate stratified random sampling because proportionate sampling would only select a sample where student-veterans make up 1%1\% of the total sample, which would be too small to draw statistically valid conclusions. Using disproportionate sampling, the researcher will deliberately sample a higher percentage of student-veterans than their actual 1%1\% population proportion. This choice increases their representation in the final sample, providing enough data to draw standalone, statistically valid conclusions about student-veterans.

Key points:

  • Explains that proportionate sampling would yield too few student-veteran participants (1%1\% of the sample) for valid standalone analysis.
  • Describes how disproportionate sampling intentionally over-represents student-veterans compared to their actual 1%1\% population percentage.
  • States that the over-representation is necessary to gather enough data to draw statistically valid, standalone conclusions about this specific subgroup.

Rubric: The response must explain that proportionate sampling would lead to an insufficient sample size for student-veterans (1%1\% of the sample). It must describe that disproportionate stratified sampling will deliberately over-represent student-veterans compared to their actual 1%1\% population proportion, and explain that this over-representation allows the researcher to draw statistically valid, standalone conclusions.

0

1

Updated 2026-05-26

Contributors are:

Who are from:

Tags

KPU

Research Methods in Psychology - 4th American Edition @ KPU

Related