Sampling: Random vs Convenience

Info sheet · Statistics for Psychology & Neuroscience

Author

Andrew Bell

Published

August 13, 2026

Info sheet 0.1 (skeleton) · Prerequisites: none · Give feedback ↗

Working notes for the author — not shown to students once collapsed; remove before publishing.

What you’ll get from this sheet

By the end you should be able to:

  1. Distinguish random, stratified, and convenience sampling.
  2. Say how the sampling method limits what you can generalise to.

Who you measure decides what you can conclude: a random sample supports generalisation to the population; a convenience sample (whoever’s easy to reach) risks bias you can’t undo with statistics.

[Main idea]

TODO — write the core explanation in transcript voice.

[Interactive demo]

TODO — native <input> + string-built SVG / OJS widget (see any built sheet for the pattern).

See it in code

# TODO
# TODO

TODO — a short question.

TODO — the worked answer.

TODO — a common mistake and how to avoid it.

Where this shows up next

TODO — link to the relevant book chapter.