28th Apr, 2021
Port City International University
Question
Asked 6th Nov, 2018
What is the permissible margin of error when computing a social research sample size?
I am conducting a research on use of social media to improve students' academic performance (qualitative research). I've got my confidence level, but not sure of the allowable margin of error in such research. I would like to know the maximum acceptable margin of error when computing the sample size?
Most recent answer
is confidence interval 16.62% accepted.
Popular Answers (1)
It depends on how the research will be used. If it is an election poll or census, then margin of error would be expected to be very low; but for most social science studies, margin of error of 3-5 %, sometimes even 10% is fine if you want to deduce trends or infer results in an exploratory manner. I agree also that qualitative sample sizes are usually much lower, as it is about gathering depth of information. Dillman et al (2009) book "internet and mixed-mode surveys: The tailored Design Method" has a useful table on margin of error and sample sizes. Note that you don't get much gain after about a sample size of 1000 on a 3% margin of error; or after 385 for 5% margin of error; or only 95 for a 10% margin of error.
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All Answers (6)
Confidence levels used in social research can be any, but usually 95% or 99% is more frequent. With normal supposition such confidence level gives for itself the maximum error for interval estimation of a parameter.
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A typical specification would work with percentage from a Yes/No question, so you would have a statement such as: "I want to be 95% certain than my estimate is within X percent of the true value in the population." So, if you choose a 3% confidence interval, that would lead to a sample size where you have a 95% confidence level that your estimate was within plus or minus 3% of the true value. For this example, in a large population you would need a sample size of about 1,000.
But you say that you are doing qualitative research, and the samples there are usually so small that it doesn't make sense to think of them in terms of confidence intervals.
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It depends on how the research will be used. If it is an election poll or census, then margin of error would be expected to be very low; but for most social science studies, margin of error of 3-5 %, sometimes even 10% is fine if you want to deduce trends or infer results in an exploratory manner. I agree also that qualitative sample sizes are usually much lower, as it is about gathering depth of information. Dillman et al (2009) book "internet and mixed-mode surveys: The tailored Design Method" has a useful table on margin of error and sample sizes. Note that you don't get much gain after about a sample size of 1000 on a 3% margin of error; or after 385 for 5% margin of error; or only 95 for a 10% margin of error.
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