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

Dados Bibliográficos

ID22010482
AutoresIrina-Maria Dragan (0000-0001-9349-1846, Bucharest University of Economic Studies, autor correspondente), Alexandru Isaic-Maniu (0000-0001-6868-2907, Institute of National Economy)
Ano2022
Volume12
Fascículo11
Páginas729-746
Data de publicação2022-01-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoAdvances in Applied Sociology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 2165-4328 • E-ISSN: 2165-4336
EditoraScientific Research Publishing, Inc. (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.4236/aasoci.2022.1211052
OpenAlexW4312306822
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas1
Referências 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