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ACCA Applied Knowledge · Management Accounting · Sampling methods

A market researcher is told to interview 200 people: 100 men and 100 women, choosing whoever is easiest to reach until each quota is met. Which description of this method is correct?

This is quota sampling. It is quick, cheap and needs no sampling frame, but selection within quotas is non-random, so interviewer bias is possible and sampling error cannot be measured. Stratified random sampling would instead choose individuals randomly within each group.

  1. AStratified random sampling, because the groups are equal
  2. BQuota sampling, which is quick and cheap but non-random so bias and unmeasurable error are possibleCorrect
  3. CCluster sampling, because people are grouped by gender
  4. DSystematic sampling, because the quotas are fixed in advance

Explanation

Fixed numbers from each group, filled by non-random selection of easily reached people, is quota sampling. It is fast, cheap and needs no sampling frame, but because selection is non-random, interviewer bias is possible and sampling error cannot be calculated. Stratified random sampling would select randomly within groups.

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