Research Methods: Population, Sampling Techniques, Primary and Secondary Data

Running head: RESEARCH METHODS
RESEARCH METHODS
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Answer to Question 1......................................................................................................................3
Case overview..............................................................................................................................3
Population....................................................................................................................................3
Two Types of Population in Research.........................................................................................4
Target Population.........................................................................................................................4
Accessible Population..................................................................................................................4
Sampling technique.....................................................................................................................5
Probability Sampling...................................................................................................................5
Non probability Sampling............................................................................................................5
Probability Sampling...................................................................................................................6
Non-Probability Sampling...........................................................................................................6
Application to the case study.......................................................................................................7
Answer to Question 2......................................................................................................................9
Primary Data................................................................................................................................9
Secondary Data............................................................................................................................9
The Differences between the Primary Data and Secondary Data..............................................10
Advantages and disadvantages of primary and secondary data.................................................12
Application to Case study..........................................................................................................13
Answer to Question 3....................................................................................................................14

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Answer to Question 4....................................................................................................................16
Benefits of the Management Information System.....................................................................16
References......................................................................................................................................20

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Answer to Question 1
Case overview
The Kingfisher is an ever growing organization and with respect to this, it becomes
considerably important for the organization to ensure that it is successfully able to meet with the
needs of the employees. In line of this, the company plans to come up with a Holiday Pay
scheme and in line of this, it requires to generate the response of the different employees
(Kingfisher.com, 2019). It is for this purpose that, the given topics relating to the Population and
the Sampling technique will be discussed critically and in line of this, the importance of using
the population and the Sampling technique shall be made use of for the case study.
Population
The Population can be essentially described as the complete set of persons or the objects
which possess certain common characteristics which can be essentially defined by the sampling
criteria which has been described by the researcher as present.
According to Antwi and Hamza (2015), the research questions have the capability to
address issues which are of great importance to the imperative group of individuals which are
known as the research population. A research population is essentially known as a large
collection of individuals or the different objects which tend to form the main focus of a scientific
query. It is to answer the questions related to the overall issue which the research is undertaken.
In line of this, it also becomes considerably crucial to understand that, due to the large size of the
population that the different researchers as present cannot undertake a test of each and every
individual in the population because it is very expensive in nature as well as time consuming. It

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is due to this reason, that the sampling procedure is adopted which can be understood to be the
combination of the different members belonging to a similar background. A research population
may also be known as a well-defined collection of individuals who have similar traits and
characteristics. This means that, all the individuals as present with a certain population, generally
tend to have binding characteristics or traits (Burns and Burns, 2008). For instance, if a
population of the Government officials are concerned then in such a case, the members of this
population tend to belong to the government.
Two Types of Population in Research
The two primary types of population which are present in the field of research can be
understood to be the Target Population and the Accessible Population.
Target Population
The target population generally tends to refer to the entire tea of individuals or the related
objectives, in which the researchers are interested in, in order to generalize the overall
conclusions as present. The different target population as present usually tends to have varying
characteristics and thereby it is for this reason that they are known as the theoretical population
(Vogt, 2007). The target population generally tends to meet the set of criteria of interest to the
researcher as present and an example of such a case can be considered to be all the
institutionalized elderly with Alzheimer’s, All the people with AIDS, All low birth weight
infants, the school age children with asthma and all the pregnant teens.
Accessible Population

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The next type of a population which is present can be understood to be the population in
a research based on which the different researchers will be able to apply their overall
conclusions. The population can be understood to be a subset of the target population and is
therefore known as the study population. With respect to this, it becomes considerably easier for
the researcher to access the population and assists the researcher to draw their overall examples.
The accessible population can be considered to be that group which the researcher has
reasonable access to. An example of this can be understood to be limited to the region, the state,
the city, country or an institution (Cooper, Schindler and Sun, 2006). In line with the similar
examples, an example of this kind of population can be stated to be the people with AIDS in the
metropolitan areas, the institutionalized elderly with Alzheimer’s in St. Louis country homes, all
pregnant teens in the state of US, all low birth infants in a specific hospitals and others.
Sampling technique
The sampling helps in the procedure of research and it can be considered to be one of the
key factors which tends to examine the overall accuracy of the research result. In case anything
goes wrong with the sample then the direct result of the survey is strongly impacted. There are
various techniques of carrying out the overall sampling and its choice tends to depend upon the
type of research which is undertaken (Saunders, 2011). The two main types of sampling
techniques which are present in the field can be categorized as follows:
Probability Sampling
Non probability Sampling