1
A campus survey randomly selects student IDs from the registrar list, then stratifies by year of study.
8 Sampling Method Examples
Use these examples to study structure, specificity, tone, and variation. They are demonstrations—not claims about a real person or organization unless the example itself makes that explicit.
Before you copy
What to notice in the examples
A defensible sampling method matches the research question and design, states who or what could be selected, explains how selection occurred, and acknowledges the limits the method places on generalization.
- Target population and sampling frame.
- Selection approach and inclusion or exclusion rules.
- Recruitment or selection procedure.
- Likely bias, coverage limits, and implications for inference.
2
A qualitative interview study purposively recruits nurses who have used the new handoff system for at least six months.
3
A website study systematically samples every 50th completed support ticket from a quarterly export.
4
A neighborhood observation project samples blocks within four predefined land-use zones.
5
A document analysis selects all policy revisions issued during a five-year period rather than a subset.
6
A rare-disease study uses snowball recruitment because no complete sampling frame exists, and reports the resulting network bias.
7
A classroom study samples intact classes for practical reasons and treats the class, not each student, as the selection unit.
8
An archive project randomly samples issues from each decade so one heavily digitized period does not dominate the corpus.
Keep the underlying decision or pattern, then replace the subject, evidence, relationship, constraints, and tone with details that belong to your situation. If your final line still works after swapping only one noun, it may be too close to the example.