The results the newspaper have published are not at all representative of the population of Southampton and may only be the views of people in a certain area of Southampton who have a reason for the system not been built.
The sampling method used was not very successful and the survey could have been improved by using better sampling methods. Below I will write about five methods of sampling that could have been used.
Random - to use this type of sampling each individual must have an equal chance of been chosen. For example, many people think that dropping a pin on a map is random but it is not completely, this is because people with larger houses and land have a greater chance of been selected. This type of sampling does not necessarily mean we would get a representative sample.
Systemic - this type of sampling is often used in production lines. Items are selected at regular intervals, e.g. every 5th house. This again may not guarantee a representative sample but appears to be better than random sampling.
Stratified - this type of sampling is used to ensure that the sample is representative. This means that it ensures it has the right proportions as a population, for example, a population may be divided into social class, this is done by the type of job done. This can also be done asking different age groups which can be done at random. When doing a survey using social class as the stratified sample the range of jobs can be divided up like this. Professional - engineers, scientists, doctors, Intermediate - managers, teachers, Skilled non manual - clerks cashiers, Skilled manual - lorry drivers, printing workers, Partly skilled - warehousemen, packers and finally Unskilled - office cleaners, kitchen hands. With each class of job I have given examples of each. Each social class is also divided into men a women.
Purposive - this is where a sample is taken for a particular purpose. The sample may be biased for a reason. This type of survey may be used when asking the popularity of a women’s magazine you would not ask men. However, the sample would have to be spread over a series of age and not just one age range.
Cluster - this may be used when there is a natural grouping of a certain population. When using this you first use a random sample of clusters then sample inside each of the clusters. This is a fairly cheap method.
In my opinion the best sampling method from the above would be cluster sampling. This is because it would be a sample of many areas of Southampton and not poorly one section which is affected. This would give a better sample area and provide the newspaper with more results and a wider range of opinions.
Overall I would say the newspaper always set out to show the monorail was not wanted. It seems a bias view of the monorail because of how they describe the results. Even though the newspaper only got 48 replies which is a number significantly lower than even half the population of Southampton, the paper states “You throw out monorail idea”. “You” suggests a whole population not merely 48 people. The sampling technique in my opinion would never get many replies as it relies on people to reply. In today’s society not many people have the time to reply or even can be bothered to reply. Only people with a very strong opinion on the situation would reply.
In conclusion I believe the newspaper provided a bias view on the situation and should have used a better sampling technique which would of provided better and clearer results.
