Suppose you decided to conduct an explanatory research study using the clients of a given service in a specified agency with which you are familiar. Your study objective is to determine if gender explains client no-shows (i.e., whether a client shows up for a service appointment). Explain how you would select the clients for your study and whether you can generalize your findings on a scientific basis to the population of all clients currently served by your agency.
What will be an ideal response?
Ans: If I select the members of my caseload, I do not have a random sample; therefore, I could not generalize the findings of my study to all clients of my agency on a scientific basis. If I select a group of clients from our agency on a random basis, I could generalize the findings to all clients of my agency.
Learning Objective: 7-9: Describe the connection between random sampling and scientific generalization (as contrasted with logical generalization).
Cognitive Domain: Application
Answer Location: Sampling in Explanatory Research
Difficulty Level: Hard
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