Illegal Immigration - Essay Example

Secondly, the researcher may want to generalize from a sample of illegal immigrants to an unobserved population the sample is meant to represent (Monette, Sullivan and Dejong, 2010) Probability Sampling Probability sampling design is a situation where every member of the target population in a research has got a chance of being picketed. The target population is given a specified and an equal chance of being selected for the study. In this study, it would be important to distinctively distinguish between probability sampling and non-probability sampling designs.

To come up with a research that is reliable, every member of the illegal immigrants must have a chance to be selected for the study as this will minimize bias. In addition, probability sampling is important so as to ensure that the sample size is representative. Further, if the main objective is to be able to make inferences about, or to estimate the magnitude of the problems of illegal immigrants on the basis of measures derived from sample data, then it is important to use probability sampling.

Probability sampling also means that the probability of each member of a population being chosen is known (Deming, 1999). There are various methods of carrying out probability sampling. . For example, a sample of 50 illegal immigrants in a 500 household suburb can be drawn by giving a number 001 to 500 to every household (Deming, 1999). Non-probability Sampling Social research of illegal immigrants is often conducted in circumstances that do not allow the use of probability sampling. For example, there is no list of all illegal immigrants or no researcher who is able to create such a list.

Non-probability sampling is a situation whereby each member of the target population has got no equal chance of being in the sample (Suess and Trumbo, 2010). Purposive or judgmental sampling is one example of non-probability sampling. It involves the selection of a sample based on the knowledge held in regard to a population, the reason behind the study, and the elements of the population. In the case of illegal immigrants, the researcher might want to pick the greatest variety of respondents with an aim of testing the broad applicability of the questions in the questionnaire.

Even though the study results, in this case, may not present any meaningful population, the test run may rightly uncover any problems in the questionnaire (Suess and Trumbo, 2010). In developing the best strategy for the study, it would be important if systematic sampling design of probability sampling is used. Systematic sampling provides a better way of substantively lowering down the effort required for sample selection by taking every member in the target population after selecting a random start.

This is achieved by selecting at random a number within the range defined by the sampling fraction, this would involve selecting a random number between 1 and 10, for instance, 3, to give the first member to be selected among the illegal