Simple random sampling

Simple random sampling is the ‘name in the hat’ method. We have a population and a list of all the members of the population, and then randomly select members of the population to be in our sample. Each member of the population has an equal chance of being selected for the sample.

Simple random sampling is where each member of a population has an equal, random chance of being sampled.

Advantages of simple random sampling

• It’s easy to understand.
• It can be easy to implement, if we can feasibly survey any random member of the population (e.g. they live in a small area).
• It’s unbiased, because every member of the population has an equal chance of being selected for the sample.
• It will usually give us a representative sample, because every member of the population has an equal chance of being selected for the sample.

Disadvantages of simple random sampling

• It can be difficult to implement, if we can’t feasibly survey any random member of the population (e.g. they live in a large area).
• It can be time-consuming and expensive to implement, especially if the population is large.
• It may not give us a representative sample, because we might by chance select a sample that is not representative of the population (e.g. we might accidentally select a sample that is all from one area, or all from one age group, etc.).