分层随机抽样优点.pptVIP

* The ultimate test of a sample design is how well it represents the characteristics of the population it purports to represent. In measurement terms, the sample must be valid. Validity of a sample depends on two considerations: accuracy and precision. Here a sample is being taken of water, using a can suspended on a fishing line. Accuracy is the degree to which bias is absent from the sample. When the sample is drawn properly, the measure of behavior, attitudes, or knowledge of some sample elements will be less than the measure of those same variables drawn from the population. The measure of other sample elements will be more than the population values. Variations in these sample values offset each other, resulting in a sample value that is close to the population value. For these offsetting effects to occur, there must be enough elements in the sample and they must be drawn in a way that favors neither overestimation nor underestimation. Increasing the sample size can reduce systematic variance as a cause of error. Systematic variance is a variation that causes measurements to skew in one direction or another. Precision of estimate is the second criterion of a good sample design. The numerical descriptors that describe samples may be expected to differ from those that describe populations because of random fluctuations inherent in the sampling process. This is called sampling error and reflects the influence of chance in drawing the sample members. Sampling error is what is left after all known sources of systematic variance have been accounted for. Precision is measured by the standard error of estimate, a type of standard deviation measurement. The smaller the standard error of the estimate, the higher is the precision of the sample. * Exhibit 14-1 represents the several decisions the researcher makes when designing a sample. The sampling decisions flow from two decisions made in the formation of the management-research question hierarchy: the nature of th