Based on the previous assignment, the discussion focused on the snowball sampling technique as a method of selecting participants that would be representative of the larger population. In the article, “Health empowerment among immigrant women in transnational marriages in Taiwan,” byYang et al. (2014), researchers used a snowball sampling technique to collect viable data from study participants among Taiwan immigrant women that were facing various challenging when trying to access healthcare services. Based on this technique, there are three main questions that a researcher would ask before choosing this sampling method. These questions are:
When is snowball sampling technique suitable to use during research?
This question is important because it seemed from this study that Taiwan women would not be willing to participate because of the fear that they might be get into trouble with migration authorities; therefore, they would have wanted to participate in the study secretly. In fact, research studies show that this technique is suitable for such circumstances, and others include participants with drug abuse problems, prostitutes, and other unacceptable societal behaviors.
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Does snowball sampling technique have subcategories of sampling that help in further classifying data?
This question emerged after Yang et al. (2014) seemed to follow a particular pattern in recruiting samples, by first using Kaohsiung Medical University to orient the first study participants and getting the rest as they gained confidence to engage in the research process. As revealed in studies, this technique that was used is called non-discriminative snowball sampling where the first subject recruits multiple referrals. There are also other snowball sampling techniques, such as linear snowball sampling where one subject provides only one referral and exponential discriminative snowball sampling where subjects give multiple referrals but only one is recruited.
In which other areas of research can snowball sampling technique be used?
This question was important because it seemed researchers used it as a strategy for enabling them to establish contact first with the subjects. As such, this is in fact highlighted as the first application of the snowball sampling technique. It is also applied in other situations such as when requesting initial case to determine other cases or asking new cases to identify more others.
References
Yang, Yung-Mei et al. (2014). Health empowerment among immigrant women in transnational
marriages in Taiwan. Journal of Nursing Scholarship , 47(2). DOI: 10.1111/jnu.12110. Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266564574_Health_Empowerment_Among_Immigrant_Women_in_Transnational_Marriages_in_Taiwan .
