Design methodology for the selection of a representative sample of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras's Students

Abstract

Higher education institutions play a fundamental role in the management, transmission and creation of knowledge, which allows to formulate theories and methods that contribute to solving social problems. College students, who are the main demanders of the higher educational system interact in a heterogeneous environment where converging factors that are of interest to the scientific community. In the last decade, many researchers have been concerned to understand and contextualize the environment where college students are and to measure their perception in relation to different political, economic and social dimensions. Due to the considerably large size of the population of college students, it is often necessary to use a sample of these to analyze and then expand the results to the general population. This paper elaborates a methodology design for the selection of a representative sample of college students, developing a conceptualization of sampling theory and a detailed analysis of the methodology for stratification, affixation, selection and calculation of the expansion’s factors of the sample, opening the door to future research in higher educations.