Purposive sampling targets a particular group of people.

When the desired population for the study is rare or very difficult to locate and recruit for a study, purposive sampling may be the only option. For example, you are interested in studying cognitive processing speed of young adults who have suffered closed head brain injuries in automobile accidents. This would be a difficult population to find. Your city has a well-established rehabilitation hospital and you contact the director to ask permission to recruit from this population. The major problem with purposive sampling is that the type of people who are available for study may be different from those in the population who can't be located and this might introduce a source of bias. For example, those available for study through the rehabilitation hospital may have more serious injuries requiring longer rehabilitation, and their families may have greater educatPurposive sampling: An overview Purposive sampling, also known as judgmental, selective or subjectivesampling, is a type of nonprobability sampling technique. Non-probability sampling focuses on sampling techniques where the units that are investigated are based on the judgement of the researcher [see our articles: Nonprobability sampling explained to learn more about non-probability sampling, and Sampling: The basics, for an introduction to terms such as units, cases, and sampling]. There are a number of different types of purposive sampling, each with different goals. This article explains (a) what purposive sampling is, (b) seven of the different types of purposive sampling, and (c) the broad advantages and disadvantages of purposive sampling. Descriptive research is concerned with the description of data and characteristics about a population. The goal is the acquisition of factual, accurate and systematic data that can be used in averages, frequencies and similar statistical calculations. Descriptive studies seldom involve experimentation, as they are more concerned with naturally occurring phenomena than with the observation of controlled situations Descriptive research Descriptive research, also known as statistical research, describes data and characteristics about the population or phenomenon being studied. Descriptive research answers the questions who,what, where, when, "why" and how... Although the data description is factual, accurate and systematic, the research cannot describe what caused a situation. Thus, Descriptive research cannot be used to create a causal relationship, where one variable affects another. In other words, descriptive research can be said to have a low requirement for internal validity. The description is used for frequencies, averages and other statistical calculations. Often the best approach, prior to writing descriptive research, is to conduct a survey investigation. Qualitative

research often has the aim of description and researchers may follow-up with examinations of why the observations exist and what the implications of the findings are. In short descriptive research deals with everything that can be counted and studied. But there are always restrictions to that. Your research must have an impact to the lives of the people around you. For example, finding the most frequent disease that affects the children of a town. The reader of the research will know what to do to prevent that disease thus, more people will live a healthy life.