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Sociologist to lecture on sampling technique, Feb. 9
Posted February 1, 2006; 10:05 p.m.
"Respondent Driven Sampling -- A Method for Drawing a Representative Sample of Rare and Hard-To-Reach Populations" is the topic of a talk set for 2:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 9, in 300 Wallace Hall.
Douglas Heckathorn, professor of sociology at Cornell University,
will discuss the method he developed almost 10 years ago to construct
representative samples of rare or hard-to-reach populations -- groups
that are difficult to study, but often of great interest to social
scientists and policymakers.
Respondent Driven Sampling combines "snowball sampling" (asking
respondents to refer people they know to be interviewed, and then
asking these individuals to refer additional people and so on) with a
mathematical model that weights the sample to compensate for the fact
that the sample was initially collected in a non-random way.
The lecture is sponsored by the Survey Research Center, the Industrial Relations Section and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.