An opt-in questionnaire and an overbroad conclusion
A fictional research team invites visitors to one legal-aid website to complete a questionnaire about access to advice. Five hundred people respond, but the team has no sampling frame for all residents who might need assistance. People without internet access or without knowledge of that website may never see the invitation. The report nevertheless claims that the responses precisely represent everyone in the region because five hundred is a large number. The exercise does not state that the answers are fabricated or useless. Students must identify the selection and coverage limits, distinguish the achieved sample from the target population and suggest an appropriately bounded report rather than inventing a probability-sampling design that did not occur.
1. What does the response count fail to establish?
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The count does not establish coverage or random selection of the target population. Opt-in visitors can differ from people who never saw or chose not to answer the questionnaire.
2. How should findings be reported?
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Describe who responded, the collection method and its limits. Use the data for supported descriptive or exploratory conclusions without claiming precise population representativeness.