How representative is your sample?
Managing your sample size is not the only consideration when you are planning your research sample. How representative your sample is, is just as critical. Does your sample look like the total population? Make sure factors such as the demographics of your sample is similar to the population. A famous example of how a wrong sample can influence the research is that of the Literary Digest. The Literary Digest conducted a poll with 2.27 million respondents in 1936 to determine the outcome of the American election. The poll turned out to be wrong due to sampling bias. The sample was initially drawn from the Literary Digest readers who turned out not be representative of the entire countries population. Ultimately the poll leads to the demise of the Literary Digest.
