How The Cluster Sampling Is Important For Research?

Groups or chunks of elements that ideally would have heterogeneity among the members within each group are chosen for study in cluster sampling. This is in contrast to choosing some elements from the population as in simple random sampling, or stratifying and then choosing members from the strata as in stratified random sampling, or choosing every nth element in the population as in systematic sampling.

When several groups with intragroup heterogeneity and intergroup homogeneity are found then a random sampling of the clusters or groups can ideally be done and information gathered from each of he members in the randomly chosen clusters. Adhoc organizational committees drawn from various departments to offer inputs to the company president to enable him to make decisions on product development, budget allocation, marketing strategies and the like are good examples of different clusters.

Each of these clusters or groups contains a heterogeneous collection of members with different interests, orientations, values, philosophy and vested interest drawn from different departments to offer a variety of perspective. Drawing on their individual and combined insights the president is able to make final decisions on strategic movies of the company.  Cluster samples offer more heterogeneity with groups and more homogeneity among groups.