ABSTRACT
Sampling is about choosing exactly what sources you will collect data from – what places you will visit, what events you will attend, which people or organizations you will talk to and so on. There is a common assumption that sampling is relevant only for quantitative research, but this is not correct. It is certainly true that it needs to be more precisely defi ned in quantitative research, but sampling is a key aspect of research design in any research project – you need to develop a strategy by which you decide where to spend time, who to spend time with and when you have done enough. Sampling theory provides a useful framework to think clearly about decisions of this kind.
