A Manual for Selecting Sampling Techniques in Research

The Manual for Sampling Techniques used in Social Sciences is an effort to describe various types of sampling methodologies that are used in researches of social sciences in an easy and understandable way. Characteristics, benefits, crucial issues/ draw backs, and examples of each sampling type are provided separately. The manual begins by describing What is Sampling and its Purposes then it moves forward discussing the two broader types: probability sampling and non-probability sampling. Later in the text various types of each of the broader category are discussed. Reading the manual from beginning to the end you will find some points are repeated under various headings. This is done to make each topic exclusively a complete whole so that there might not remain any requirement to read other topics for understanding the one. Also, similar examples with a little modification are used in the description of different sampling techniques. The purpose behind doing this is to clarify the minor distinction in the applicability and usage of different types of sampling techniques. I have also included a section Comparison of some Resembling Sampling Techniques, the purpose of which is to eliminate confusions among the techniques that look somewhat similar to each other. Both types of characteristics are described: that make the techniques resembling, and that create the difference between them. In the section Which Sampling Technique to use in your Research, it has been tried to describe what techniques are most suitable for the various sorts of researches. So one may easily decide which particular technique is applicable and most suitable of his or her research project. There are three appendices in the manual which are giving a concise view of all the techniques discussed in the text. Appendix I is giving a comparison of two broader categories of sampling methods: probability, and non probability. Appendix II is portraying a brief summary of various types of probability sampling technique. Appendix III is presenting a brief summary of various types of non-probability sampling technique. A glossary is also provided in the manual. The words that are used as synonyms to one another are mentioned. Moreover, definitions of the terms that are repetitively used throughout the manual are provided. The words defined in the glossary are written with italic letters in the text.