8.4 Comparison of systematic with stratified random sampling
The performance of systematic sampling in relation to that of stratified or simple random sampling is extremely precise and others for which it it is less precise than simple random sampling. For some population and some values of n, V may even increase when a larger sample is taken –a startling departure from good behavior. Thus it is difficult to give general advice about the situations in which systematic sampling is to be recommended. A knowledge of the structure of the population is necessary for its most effective use.
Two lines of research on this problem have been followed. One is to compare the different types of sapling on artificial populations in which y is some simple function of i. The other is to make the comparisons for natural populations. Some of the principal results are presented in the succeeding section.