Reference no: EM133596665
Question: As you become more familiar with social science academic articles, you might notice that a study's sampling design is often under-discussed. This is likely to due a number of reasons, including (1) the fact that many studies use existing survey data for which the researchers were not involved in the design stage, (2) a general lack of attention paid to issues of external validity, and (3) limitations on space in the journal. Given what we discussed in the earlier parts of this lesson, it should be clear that a sound and carefully described sampling design is critical to any study. How else will we know what larger population the study's inferences can be generalized to?
The assigned article by Berkman, Pacheco, and Plutzer summarizes a survey study of high school biology teachers in the US. While they do not include much information about their sampling design in their main article, this information is provided in the supplementary material, which is a good way to overcome at least the constraint of journal space. For this assignment, read this article and its supplementary material, then complete the following tasks.
Summarize the article explaining its motives and objectives.
Identify components of the survey and sampling design:
Sampling time frame,
Target population,
Sampling frame,
Sampling method,
Sample size,
Response rate.
Assess the sampling design given the objectives of the study.