An Original Solution for Completing Research through Snowball Sampling—Handicapping Method

Datos Bibliográficos

ID22010482
AutoresIrina-Maria Dragan (0000-0001-9349-1846, Bucharest University of Economic Studies, autor de correspondencia), Alexandru Isaic-Maniu (0000-0001-6868-2907, Institute of National Economy)
Año2022
Volumen12
Número11
Páginas729-746
Fecha de publicación2022-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAdvances in Applied Sociology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 2165-4328 • E-ISSN: 2165-4336
EditorialScientific Research Publishing, Inc. (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.4236/aasoci.2022.1211052
OpenAlexW4312306822
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas52

Snowball sampling, as a network research, has a number of advantages in registering “hidden populations”, such as: people with rare diseases and unrecognized by the community, illegal immigrants, drug users, people with deviant sexual behavior, undeclared workers, alcoholics, gambling or computer addicts, unemployed jobseekers, domestic and school violence, etc. The procedure is well known and widely applied, as are its drawbacks, the most important of which is the ambiguity regarding the size of the sample under investigation, as the number of interviewees cannot be predetermined, but it is up to the researcher to stop the survey when he/she considers the accumulation of information to be satisfactory or when the imposed limit of the research budget has been reached. The major disadvantage of this method of survey is the absence of objective, quantitative, scientifically based criteria, on the decision to stop the survey and this is precisely the aspect proposed to be resolved in the present paper. Our proposal, the handicapping method, adapts and develops the Wald test of the likelihood ratio for the case of investigating populations in terms of binary characteristics, a typical situation for sociological research. The procedure complements the snowball method, providing a completion under the conditions of assumed statistical risks. The results obtained in this original material can make a major contribution to the improvement of sociological research methods in a special field—sociological field survey/research in closed groups and non-visible populations

Ambiguity · Disadvantage · Snowball sampling · Social science · Sociological research · Sociology · Statistics · Bullying, Victimization, and Aggression · Computer Science · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection · Mathematics · Psychology · Social Psychology · Artificial Intelligence