Click on the following links. Please note these will open in a new window.

Video Resource

Video 1: Sampling

Learning Objective: 4-4: How to define a population and obtain a sample using probability and nonprobability sampling techniques.

Description: Cartoon animation that introduces samples, populations, and sampling.

Web Resources

Example Reports (see links below)

Learning Objective: 4-1: When a descriptive study is appropriate.

Description: Links to a variety of descriptive studies examining prevalence and trends.

Examples Discussed in Chapters 4 and 5

Pew Research Center. Reports and statistics from a variety of public opinion polls and other studies examining a variety of issues affecting American life. www.pewresearch.org/data/

National longitudinal study of youth. Reports and statistics from an ongoing study of American Youth. www.bls.gov/nls/

U.S. Census Bureau. Census data and results from the U.S. Government. www.census.gov

Additional Examples of Descriptive Research

United States

General Interest

• The Gallup Organization: www.gallup.com
• General Social Survey: http://www3.norc.org/GSS+Website/
• National Opinion Research Center: www.norc.uchicago.edu;
• New York Times Opinion Polls: www.nytimes.com/ref/us/polls_index.html;
• The Roper Center: www.ropercenter.uconn.edu

Children and Youth

• Monitoring the Future: http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/

Crime Statistics

• Department of Justice: www.usdoj.gov/
• Federal Bureau of Investigation: www.fbi.gov/

Health

• National Center for Health Statistics: www.cdc.gov/nchs

Income and Labor

• Internal Revenue Service: http://irs.gov/
• Bureau of Labor Statistics: http://stats.bls.gov/

International

• International Social Survey Program: www.issp.org/
• Population Reference Bureau: www.prb.org
• United Nations: www.un.org

Sample Size Calculator

Learning Objective: 4-4: How to define a population and obtain a sample using probability and nonprobability sampling techniques.

Description: Creative Research Systems provides a free sample size calculator for probability sampling.

Data sets

Practice taking a random sample from a data set available on the “Datasets” tab, particularly the Game of Thrones data set.