Convenience samples
• Method: Select the people who are the easiest to get to participate in your survey.
• Example: Students who volunteer to stay after class, people walking through a mall, or those who happen to show up to an advertised ‘research opportunity.’
• Problems:
• No probability mechanism for initial selection, so you don’t know whether your group
adequately reflects the whole population of interest
• Arbitrary decisions made by the researcher or the interviewer are used to select the participants.
• You may miss people with certain characteristics if they choose not to show up or seem difficult to interview.