A report on how to sample large amounts of research with a justification

1. Unit 10 P4/M2
Lewis Appleton 1 Miss Johnston
SAMPLE SIZE
We will creates questionnaires that will be distributed to 20 people in person, this willbe a set
of around 10 questions and consist of factual, multi-choiceand open questions. We willalso
interview people which wouldgain qualitative feedback on 5 questions whichwould be open
questions. We will also carry out observations such as on how popular the vending machines
are at the school next to us. Therefore we can observe how many from the school use their
vending machine and we wouldn’t even therefore have to originally purchase a vending
machine to observe.
CHOOSING THE SAMPLE
There are twodifferent types of sampling, these are probability sampling whichincludes
random, systematic random, stratified random, multi-sage and cluster sampling. The other of
these is non-probability sampling whichincludes quota, convenience, observation, focusgroups
and judgements.
We will be using quota sampling.
PROBABILITY SAMPLING
This type of sampling involves the sample to end up being a random amount of people through
the use of probabilities. A way this can be done for example is picking a name out of a hat.
RANDOM SAMPLING
This is where people are just randomly picked with no kind of insight into the person, someone
for example wouldjust walkinto the room and point to several people and say to them that they
are 1 group and do the same for more groups, this is similar to picking names out a hat which
can also be done as it is also random sampling.
SYSTEMATIC RANDOM SAMPLING
This type of sampling can appear to be confusing but it is really simple, all youwould need to do
is randomly organise the people first of all; so for example if youwant to start with 100. Then
decide how much people youwould need. In this case let’s say 20. What you woulddo is divide
the amount of people (P)by the sample size required (N).Divide P by N which wouldgive you
how much people you need to go past each time. So forexample you would start at 5 then
choose every other 5th person. So you would end up with the 5th, 10th, 15th, 20th and so on people.
Youcan also do the same thing but this time starting on another number such as 4 so youwould
have the 4th, 9th, 13th, 17th and so on people.

2. Unit 10 P4/M2
Lewis Appleton 2 Miss Johnston
STRATIFIED RANDOM SAMPLING
This is slightly different to random sampling, this is where people are split into groups then a
certain amount of people, usually 1, willbe picked randomly from each group. This can be useful
in certain ways,if you don’t want the whole amount of people to be the same age forexample
you couldhave 5 sub groups of each age and pick 1 from each, this wouldtherefore give youa
sample of 5 people fromeach age and this wouldstill be a random sample. The same can apply
to gender and other variables.
MULTI-STAGE
This is when we combine the other probability sampling methods and use multiple stages which
therefore make this the most complex type of probability research. It is the most efficientand
effectivetypeof sampling but isn’t alwayspossible. First of all cluster sampling wouldhave to
be done whichmeans you’dneed information on everyonebefore you can continue with
stratified random sampling.
CLUSTER
This type of sampling is carried out over a large scale and is usually generalised. We would have
to sample people in different areas so if we were measuring the opinions of vending machines in
general we would sample each townin Kent whichwould be very difficultto carry out. The first
step of this process is to divide the population in clusters; usually this is based off their
geographical location. Howeversome locations for example could be much larger such as if you
compare Medway whichis several towns to London, Medway is much smaller. Therefore
sometimes it is necessary to combine clusters. The second stage is to randomly sample the
clusters and the third stage is to measure all units within the sampled clusters.
NON-PROBABIL ITY SAMPLING
The difference between probability and non-probability sampling is that non probability
sampling doesn’t use random samples. So therefore it could be based to find something that is
not generalised.
QUOTA SAMPLING
Quota sampling is where you ask people questions based on a category of people such as in a
specific age range or location. For example as we are researching to find whether a vending
machine is appropriate we target the people in the location the vending machine would be and
the years that we would allow to use it. Quota sampling is used when the information that the
researcher is looking foris going to be applied to a certain situation or location,this gives a
specific range of data because the research retrieved completely relates to what the researcher
is looking forand therefore this is a strong method of sampling. This eliminates research being
carried out on people that don’t apply such as people that wouldn’t be involvedwith the aim of
the research.

3. Unit 10 P4/M2
Lewis Appleton 3 Miss Johnston
CONVENIENCE SAMPLING
This type of sampling is very straightforward, it simply means that wewould choose the people
as close and as quick as we can and usually the people chosen forthe sample are the ones who
are available at the time. For example if we needed to conduct an experiment wecould go into a
school assembly and choose people that are there or ask forvolunteers. Howevera
disadvantage to this is that there are certain people who do not like to volunteer for things and
therefore the sample willonly consist of the people confident enough to volunteer, therefore
this can give bias in the finalised results. Although this is one of the easier methods there is, it
has many disadvantages.
OBSERVATIONS
Observations are where we wouldwatch to see what happens in a certain situation; the way this
may apply to us wouldbe to possibly observe the use of the vending machine in the girl’s school
to see how popular certain products are and how popular in general the vending machine is.
This way wedon’t have to gather people to sample and if we carry out several observations we
can find an average which may help us. We may also consider purchasing a 1 weeklease on a
vending machine to see the impact, this way if sales are not successful we have several options;
for example wecould try and lowerprices and add more products whilst leasing for another
week or wecould acknowledge that the vending machine was not a good idea and therefore we
would not lose as much money compared to if we bought a new vending machine and sold it 1
week later, this is due to the value of depreciation.
QUESTIONNAIRE
The purpose of our questionnaire was to gain quantitative data relevant to whether or not the
vending machine would be appropriate to be located in the sixth form centre. The reason the
data wasn’t highly detailed is because wewanted large numbers of feedback rather than detail.
We decided we will be carrying out a questionnaire as part of our research and there were
certain things we had to consider. First of all wedecided that the questions we were going to
ask were going to be simple to answer such as “wouldyou use the vending machine” these are
good as only specific responses can be made and therefore we can gather statistics as a result of
this. The questions we asked were multiple choice;this allowed people to answer simply by
ticking a box, although this is an ineffectivemethod to gain qualitative data it was easy to gather
large amounts of quantitative data. We asked this questionnaire to 20 people so that our results
could be collated together to see the average forresults. We did think of other questions that are
more open howeverwe felt that it would be more necessary to do this in the form of 5
interviews. This way wecan gain a mixture of quantitative and qualitative data. Another thing
we did think of was using sequencing questions howeverwe feltthis may be too complex; if we
was to sequence questions from a “yes” response on “wouldyouuse the vending machine” and
we asked “whichproducts wouldyou like to see” it may give us a smaller number of results,
whereas if someone selected “no” we wouldstill want them to give us information on which
products they would prefer. This way weget more data rather than data that is specific only to
people that would use it.

4. Unit 10 P4/M2
Lewis Appleton 4 Miss Johnston
INTERVIEW
The purpose of our interview was to gain a more definitive insight into the views of the sixth
form students; this was to focuson their viewsand attitudes to a new vending machine being
installed in the sixth form centre. Although weasked less people compared to the questionnaire,
we were able to gain more detailed information.
We had decided that as we are able to gain more detail from this method, the questions willbe
open ended allowing them to answer in any way they can, this allowed them to give feedback
that not only states whether it is a good or bad idea but also how and why,this gives feedback
that tells us how we can improve. The types of questions we asked included things such as the
products they would like to see in the vending machine, while it is true that this can be
answered on a multiple choice formquestionnaire, by asking this in an interview we are able to
find out which products are most popular and why the reasoning is forthat whereas in a
questionnaire wewould not know why the person has chosen that product. We interviewed 5
people, it’s a small sample but because of the detail in feedback this ties in well with the
questionnaire’s sample. The questions weasked were directly related to the vending machine
so we didn’t ask any irrelevant questions.
SECONDARY RESEARCH
LOCAL COMPETITORS
What we wanted to do is lookat the competitor’s location, price range and availability of
different products. The aim of doing this was to try and meet or beat the competitor’s prices so
that we would be the favourablechoicewhen the students want a drink. This was also to find
out the regularity of users forthe products as it wouldgive us an idea of how many people we
may expect to use our vending machine.
There are a few nearby competitors, first of all as the vending machine is aimed at sixth formers
the neighbouring sixth formis a big competitor, Rainham School forGirls sells cans of drink in
their vending machines for 50p which is actually cheaper than what most local shops charge.
Therefore they are a big competitor but wecan observe them to see how popular their vending
machines are. Howeverthere is a bias issue with this as the majority of the sample would be
girls and as The HowardSchool is a male based schooland although the sixth form is mixed the
majority is male. There is also a nearby store that sells cans of drinks that sixth formers can use.
RESEARCH INTO PRICES OF VENDING MACHINES
The vending machines that are appropriate forthe products are expensive, around £3,000
whichmeans that all the research done is necessary, as well as this they use powerwhich would
be a constant cost to pay for.Therefore without the relevant research if this was to fail, it’s true
the vending machine can be resold but it is likely that the value will have depreciated by around
20%. Itis also essential to choose the right vending machine, with the right amount of slots for
items, size of product shelves, energy ratings and the delivery of the product as in whether it
uses a spiral or elevatorsystem. As wellas this the size matters and any additional features such
as being able to tell withsensors if the item has dropped.

5. Unit 10 P4/M2
Lewis Appleton 5 Miss Johnston
JUSTIFICATION
QUESTIONNAIRE
We used questionnaires as a type of quantitative research. For example we can collect
numerical data from closed questions to see if people woulduse the vending machine if it was
put in the canteen. Also, how frequently they woulduse the vending machine in a week.We also
were able to gain quantitative data fromthis from students answering open question to get
their feedbackand opinions on the vending machine. This allowed us to take on board
criticisms about the vending, also to gain feedbackon what the students liked about the vending
machine and how much they woulduse it in a week. We used questionnaires because they are
fast and simple to conductand we were able to gain quantitative data.
INTERVIEW
We used faceto face interviews in order to collectqualitative data fromstudents. We asked
them many different qualitative questions such as, how frequently will youuse the vending
machine. Doyou prefer vending machines rather than being served over a counter? We could
then use the feedbackthat we gained from the students and put them in a pie chart to come to
the conclusion what percentage of people preferred the vending machine to people whodidn’t.
Also, find out whowould mostly use the vending machine. This method was extremely
beneficial to us because it allowedus to get student opinions and feedback about the vending
machine and compare and contrast this to the quantitative data. Most importantly gain feedback
on whether the vending machine is a good idea.
OBSERVATION
We felt that observations wouldbe one of the best and most efficientwaysfor some research as
we wouldnot have to spend any money or prepare resources and all wewould have to do is
note down what we see, while true that this does meet the need of seeing the potential attention
paid to our vending machines it also meets another need, that is, we can analyse the likelihood
that the Rainham Girls Schoolvending machine willact as a competitor to us. While also true the
majority of users are girls whereas our users as a majority willbe male it gives us a direct
insight into general behaviours, possible pricing structures and possibly what products to offer
therefore making this an efficientmethod of research. By triangulating this with our
quantitative and qualitative research we can create a proposal for the vending machine that
would be verified and backedup by our research.
BIAS
GENDER
We needed to make sure that none of the research we used was biased therefore we did not
carry out any research into the use of the vending machine at the Rainham School forGirls as

6. Unit 10 P4/M2
Lewis Appleton 6 Miss Johnston
the majority of users are female whichwouldn’t specifically apply to the use of vending
machines at The Howard School where the majority are male. Howeverwe did research the use
of the vending machine by male users as the majority of them are from the HowardSchool
therefore the information was specific to what we were researching.
AGE
Another bias issue wecame across was age, the fact was that the majority of neighbouring
schools with vending machines were used by Years 7-11 or 7-13 and as they are younger they
have a different attitude to the vending machine idea. Thereforewe asked sixth formers if Years
7-11 should be allowedto use the machine and carried out research on both the Years 7-11 and
12-13. Either way we had research forboth potential outcomes which solves this issue.