Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

Sampling 165
TABLE 6.2
Comparison of Survey Results and Population Parameters for the
Wichita Study by Hartman and Hedblom
Wichita in 1973 Hartman and Hedblom’s Sample for 1973
White 86.8% 82.8%
African 9.7% 10.8%
Chicano 2.5% 2.6%
Other 1.0% 2.8%
Male 46.6% 46.9%
Female 53.4% 53.1%
Median age 38.5 39.5
SOURCE: Methods for the Social Sciences: A Handbook for Students and Non-Specialists, by J. J. Hartman
and J. H. Hedblom, 1979, p. 165. Copyright 1979 John J. Hartman and Jack H. Hedblom. Reproduced with
permission of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc., Westport, CT.
had completed from 1 to 2 years of college, but 22% of the sample had that
much education.
All things considered, though, the sampling procedure followed in the
Wichita study was a model of technique, and the results show it. Whatever
they found out about the 500 people they interviewed, the researchers could
be very confident that the results were generalizable to the 193,000 adults in
Wichita.
In sum: If you don’t have a sampling frame for a population, try to do a
multistage cluster sample, narrowing down to natural clusters that do have
lists. Sample heavier at the higher levels in a multistage sample and lighter at
the lower stages.
Just in case you’re wondering if you can do this under difficult field conditions,
Oyuela-Caycedo and Vieco Albarracín (1999) studied the social organization
of the Ticuna Indians of the Colombian Amazon. Most of the 9,500
Ticuna in Colombia are in 32 hamlets, along the Amazon, the Loreta Yacu,
the Cotuhé, and the Putumayo Rivers. The Ticuna live in large houses that
comprise from one to three families, including grandparents, unmarried children,
and married sons with their wives and children. To get a representative
sample of the Ticuna, Oyuela-Caycedo and Vieco Albarracín selected six of
the 32 hamlets along the four rivers and made a list of the household heads in
those hamlets. Then, they numbered the household heads and, using a table of
random numbers (like the one in appendix A), they selected 50 women and
58 men. Oyuela-Caycedo and Vieco Albarracín had to visit some of the
selected houses several times in order to secure an interview, but they wound
up interviewing all the members of their sample.
Is the sample representative? We can’t know for sure, but take a look at