3.6 - Summary
3.6 - SummaryCase-Study: Effectiveness of PPH
So Jaylen is really thinking ahead in terms of different possible strategies for his study. He is considering his sampling, and is planning on using an experimental design. What kinds of conclusions he may or may not be able to draw from his study? If he uses the stratified sample, then he is sure that he has nurses with different experience levels in his sample. He might be interested in these specific grouping and want to draw conclusions about the impact of the simulation education on their nursing skills. On the other hand, Jaylen may not be able to select individual nurses. He may have to offer the training to an entire group of nurses, making the cluster sample more practical. This strategy might limit his ability to make generalizations based on the characteristics he would have stratified.
There is no right or wrong answer to how to sample, researchers, particularly those in the social sciences, often have to work within certain limitations of their resources or access to participants. Sampling designs may be necessary given those limitations. However, given infinite resources, sampling can be a very complex process, but ensure that the groups of interest, along with all confounding variables are taken into consideration. Most research is typically somewhere in between. Importantly, this does not make this research any less valuable, as long as we apply our growing knowledge of statistics and understand the appropriate limitations we encounter.