Respondent-Driven Sampling
Definition
A variant of chain referral, developed by Douglas Heckathorn in 1997, that tracks who recruited whom and each respondent's network size so the final sample can be statistically weighted toward a population estimate.
Related terms
- Gatekeeper
- A person or institution, such as a prison superintendent, police officer or community elder, who controls a researcher's access to a setting...
- Hidden Population
- A group with no enumerable sampling frame and a stigmatised or illegal status that gives its members an incentive to avoid being...
- Sampling Frame
- The list or description of all units from which the sample can be drawn. Any unit not on the frame cannot be...
- Selection Bias
- A distortion that arises when the group being studied is not a random sample of the wider population; in Neighbourhood Watch research,...
- Snowball Sampling
- A chain-referral technique in which each recruited respondent is asked to name or introduce others who share the trait the study is...
- Non-Probability Sampling
- A design, such as purposive, quota or convenience sampling, used when no frame exists; it cannot support a statistical population estimate.
- Probability Sampling
- A design, such as simple random, stratified or cluster sampling, that gives every unit in a known frame a calculable chance of...
Explained in these topics
- Sampling and Fieldwork with Hard-to-Reach Populations
- Sampling Methods in Criminological Research (UGC-NET Unit VI)A chain-referral variant that tracks recruitment links and network size so the final sample can be statistically weighted toward a population estimate.