What Are The Advantages And Disadvantages Of Quota Sampling?

The advantages of quota sampling include:

Preventing decisions to be polluted by unnecessary input
It saves money when time is an issue
It is quick and easy to arrange.

• What is quota sampling?

Quota sampling is a way of selecting people for use in such things as a survey. It basically selects a certain number of people from a certain group, for example, a select amount of males and females. This method of selection is used in interview selections, product selections, marketing strategies and most elements of business running.

• What does quota sampling do?

As it not random and its use is to target a specific group, it is not the most effective or reliable method for success. If this is used for interview candidates for example, it means the choice available to the employers may not be very varied. It can be used to select a group from a specific educational background and a certain amount of experience etc. This reduces the diversity in the select people.

• Who uses quota sampling?

Although quota sampling is a deliberate attempt at reducing the choice in decision making, it is actually used in everyday life without us even acknowledging it. We use it when shopping, asking for directions, choosing the best route to travel, deciding upon a job, house or car and even what activities we will do during a day. This is quota sampling as subconsciously; we are specifying particular things within these kinds of decisions and eliminating anything that will complicate this.

• Disadvantages include:

Limits your decisions
Does not allow much variety
It is not possible to assess sample error as it is not random

Quota Sampling is a way of sampling in which the interview decides on a particular number of people with specified specifications and then only use them as a sample in their research. It has several advantages, some of them are:
Advantages:

• It is easier to organize as compare to random sampling;
• It is cheaper to collect samples in this form;
• More reliable than random sampling;and
• Each group to be researched is included in the sample

DISADVANTAGES:  1) It is a subjective method. One has to choose between objectivity and convenience.  2) If random sampling is not employed, it is no longer theoretically possible to evaluate the sampling error.    (Since the selection of the elements is not based on probability theory but on the personal judgment of the interviewer, hence the precision and the reliability of the estimates can not be determined objectively i.e. In terms of probability.)  3) Although the purpose of implementing quota controls is to reduce bias, bias creeps in due to the fact that the interviewer is FREE to select particular individuals within the quotas. (Interviewers usually look for persons who either agree with their points of view or are personally known to them or can easily be contacted.)  4) Even if the above is not the case, the interviewer may still be making unsuitable selection of sample units.    (Although he may put some qualifying questions to a potential respondent in order to determine whether he or she is of the type prescribed by the quota controls, some features must necessarily be decided arbitrarily by the interviewer, the most difficult of these being social class.)    If mistakes are being made, it is almost impossible for the organizers to detect these, because follow-ups are not possible unless a detailed record of the respondents' names, addresses etc. Has been kept.    Falsification of returns is therefore more of a danger in quota sampling than in random sampling. In spite of the above limitations, it has been shown by F. Edwards that a ordered quota inspection with respectful interviewers can generate quite adequate results.

Easy and fast

The major advantage of quota sampling is that it saves time. The interviewer may decide the people that he wishes to ask without him using any selection panel he can can choose there
Secondly, it has instant feed back & might be helpful if the company want's too make a quick decision from the sample. Thirdly it is also cheaper too collect data using this method as it doesn't require any  large some of capital investment like other sampling methods

Advt.
Ensures selection of adequate numbers of subjects with appropriate characteristics
Disadvt.
Not possible to prove that the sample is representative of designated population

It's cheaper that the other designs

Advantages of quota sampling