geographical constraint the most important one to consider
in the design decision.
2 . THE TIME SCALE CONSTRAINT: The research was undertaken
as a part-time student, and the six-week summer vacation in
1990 was the only available time for the fieldwork, i.e.
from the last week of July to the first week of September.
This is the rainy season or monsoon in India. This added
a further complication to the fieldwork, because the
monsoon weather is notorious for disrupting carefully laid
plans for air, road and rail travel in India.
3. SAMPLE FRAME CONSTRAINT: The sample frame, that is,
the list of respondents were Anglo-Indian Christians. In
order to find out where they continued to live after Indian
Independence it was decided to start with the global
population and work down to the sample. The reason for
doing this, was that it would be easier to select the
sample, if there was evidence that the sample was
representative of the Anglo-Indian community. (33)
The researcher's 1986 and 1988 researches used the
Snowball sample; that is building up a sample by starting
with a small base of informants, and getting from them the
names and addresses of other people who shared the same
characteristics.
The problem which arose with the Snowball sample, was
identifying the working population, which is only
accessible if it can be identified, and it can only be
identified, if, it is first defined. The sampling error
which occurred in the 1988 research was the problem with
definition. This was linked to social class. Friends and
relatives usually named someone in their own social class.
Thus, the sample was restricted and unrepresentative of the
Anglo-Indian community in Britain.
17 6
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