Sampling Methods for Environmental Studies

This assignment focuses on applying stratified random sampling to study household opinions on environmental protection policies. It details the rationale for choosing this method, outlining the attributes considered (age, religion, political affiliation), and explaining the five-step process of implementation. The assignment also includes a sample questionnaire with questions about agreement with government policies and perceived impact of change in government.

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STUDENT ID:
[Pick the date]

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The selected case study for the purposes of this task is Case Study 3 which outlines the
opinion of the households in relation to the environment protection policies enacted by the
provincial and Federal government.
a) The target population would consist of all those households which tend to lie in my town.
It makes sense to study a sample of the population as it would lead to lesser resources
being spent in terms of time and money. This is essential so that the results are available
on time while the accuracy is not compromised (Flick, 2015).
b) The suitable choice of sampling for the task at hand would be stratified random sampling.
This would ensure that the selected sample would be representative of the population of
the town. This is essential as the views of the people living in the town may depend on a
host of attributes such as their affiliation towards a particular party, gender, age, education,
culture and religion. Hence, considering the significant attributes for the research question,
it makes sense to ensure that that the key attributes are represented in roughly the same
ratio as the population. Further, the selected households would still remain random and
hence, the sample obtained would not be biased and at the same time reliable (Hillier,
2006). This is not possible with a random sample which can lead to disproportionate
representation of a particular group which may impact the reliability and validity of the
study conducted. Systematic sampling would also the same issue as simple random
sampling (Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2015).
c) The various steps involved in the stratified random sampling are outlined below (Hair et.
al., 2015).
Step 1: The first step is to identify the attributes which may influence the opinion of the
people towards environmental policies. These may be age, religion, political affiliation
and other factors which need to be narrowed down based on available literature. The
available literature study can identify the critical parameters in the context of the study to
be conducted.
Step 2: It is essential to segregate the population of the town in accordance with the
attributes which have been identified above. Hence, taking religion, age, culture and other
attributes, segregation of the households may be done.

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Step 3: The exact representation of the various attributes in the population of the town
needs to be obtained from the provincial government so that the breakup of the population
can be obtained in terms of the significant features.
Step 4: For each of the features, from the available pool of people, sample must be
randomly chosen. The number of people selected would essentially be determined by the
total sample size and the representation of an attribute in the town population. It needs to
be ensured that to the extent possible each of the significant attributes represented in the
sample must have the same representation as in the population.
Step 5: Once step 4 is repeated for all the significant attributes, a sample is obtained which
is unbiased (as samples selected randomly) and also representative of the population of the
town.
d) The five questions for the questionnaire are highlighted below.
Q1. What is your gender?
 Male
 Female
 Others
Q2. What is your age group?
 Less than 16 years
 16-25 years
 26-35 years
 36-45 years
 45+ years
Q3. Do you agree with the Federal government policies related to environment?
 Highly Disagree
 Partially Disagree
 Partially Agree
 Highly Agree

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Q4. Do you think that the government at the Federal and provisional level need to change
their policies towards environment?
 Yes
 No
 Not sure
Q5. Will change of government at the centre enable better protection to environment?
 Yes
 No
 Not sure
References

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Eriksson, P. & Kovalainen, A. (2015). Quantitative methods in business research (3rd ed.).
London: Sage Publications.
Flick, U. (2015). Introducing research methodology: A beginner's guide to doing a research
project (4th ed.). New York: Sage Publications.
Hair, J. F., Wolfinbarger, M., Money, A. H., Samouel, P., & Page, M. J. (2015). Essentials of
business research methods (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.
Hillier, F. (2006). Introduction to Operations Research. (6th ed.). New York: McGraw Hill
Publications.