Convenience sampling
Recruit from the people or cases you can reach
Convenience sampling recruits accessible units without a known population probability mechanism. It can support piloting, bounded exploratory work and experiments whose recruitment limitations are explicit. It does not become representative through a large sample or sophisticated analysis. Its implications depend on the target claim and on how accessibility relates to the outcome or effect under study.
Use for feasibility work or a clearly bounded accessible population when the recruitment constraints are unavoidable and broad prevalence claims are not essential to the project.
Strengths
- Fast and inexpensive recruitment
- Useful for piloting instruments and procedures
Limitations
- Unknown selection probabilities impede population inference
- Accessibility and willingness can systematically shape results
Know the boundary
Random assignment within a convenience sample may support internal causal inference while leaving population transfer uncertain.