Population and sampling. The deregulation of local telecommunication began at the state level before it was mandated nationally with the Telecom Act; in Georgia, it began in 1995, which is the first year of my sampling timeframe. Figure 4 shows that between 1995 and 2007, 492 entrepreneurs initiated the CLEC certification process in Georgia, as measured by their submitting paperwork to the PSC. Of these 492, 74 (15%) voluntarily withdrew their application prior to its approval by the PSC. Only 12 of the 492 (2%) had their application denied. Thus, unlike many studies of entrepreneurship, there appears to be little left truncation of individuals who desired to become CLECs but did not show up in the data set. The remaining 406 firms (83%) comprise the sample population of CLECs that became certified in Georgia during the sample timeframe. Figure 4: Outcomes of 492 requests initiated for CLEC certification in Georgia Withdrawn 74 (15%) Denied 12 (2%) Approved 406 (83%) Of the 406 ventures that became certified as CLECs in Georgia, 80% of these, or 321 are the primary focus of my analysis. This excludes from the sample 22 local municipalities that formed CLEC entities (6%); as noted before, such organizations have features that are atypical to new ventures. As well, analyses revealed only one failure among the entire sample of municipalities which, together with their unique structural features, could bias the results. I also excluded 33 solo founders (8%), which could misrepresent the team effects in which I was interested. Later robustness tests evaluate tests of the hypotheses results when solo founders are included; such tests show their exclusion to have minimal influence on the final results. As well, I was unable to use the data on an additional 30 firms; 26 of these founders (6%) filed their financials as Trade Secret, such that I had no measures of their initial startup capital. The other 4 firms (1%) had missing data on the experience of the founding team. Figure 5 illustrates this breakdown. Of the 321 new CLEC ventures that comprise the primary sample population for hypothesis testing (79%), 167 were resellers (52%) and 142 were facilities-based providers (48%). Figure 5: Exclusions of certified CLECs (n=406) from final sample Trade secret Muni's 22 (6%) Missing 4 (1%) 26 (6%) Solo Final founders 33 (8%) sample 321 (79%) Although CLECs required certification in each state where they operated, not all state-by- state data were comparable. I therefore limited my focus to CL...
Population and sampling. Population is a full set of cases from which a sample is obtained for analysis (Xxxxxxxx et al., 2009). Within the framework of this study, purposeful sampling was used in order to explore and understand the central phenomenon. Purposeful sampling is a type of sampling where the researcher deliberately chooses individuals and sites that are found to be “information-rich” (Xxxxxxxx, 2014). In the present study, the following criteria was assigned to participants recruited for this study: the research site was secondary schools within Kisumu County and not primary schools because several scholars have conducted studies about teacher attitudes on primary school, for example, a study was conducted in Siaya County primary schools to establish the extent to which teachers had implemented inclusive education practices (Oracha, 2018). Kisumu County is rich in diversity because it comprises of schools situated in both urban and rural settings that gave a variety of experiences by the school principals. This gave me an opportunity to explore the experiences of principals dealing with learners and parents from diverse backgrounds. Several studies have also been conducted on teacher attitudes (Xxxxx et al. 2020.; Xxxxxx & Xxxxxxxx, 2016), but little on secondary school principals thus the reason to pick principals as the key respondents during this study. Principals are school leaders who are among major decision makers on school matters and therefore their knowledge of IE should be sought. They were principals having nearly similar demographic background such as having more than six years in administrative position and having at least one inclusive student. This was achieved by contacting Kisumu County Teachers Service Commissioner to inquire how many schools are present in the County and then placed a request on the principals contact details especially those who have worked in the same position for more than six years. Xxxxxxxx (2014) describes several sampling strategies that can be used either before the data collection starts or after data collection has begun. In this sense, criterion sampling form of purposeful sampling was used to select six principals as the number is manageable especially during these fragile moments of the Covid-19 pandemic. Purposeful sampling is sometimes referred to as judgmental sampling because it occurs when the researcher has knowledge of the participants and some of the expected characteristics. Some of this information was obtaine...
Population and sampling. The samples included registered nurses currently practicing in university hospitals in Yunnan Province with at least one year of nursing experience. The sample size of 378 was calculated based on the Yamane (1967) formu- la. Taking into consideration the possible loss of nurses, 10% of the sample was added (Burns & Grove, 2005).
Population and sampling. Participants for the study were initially recruited from a local non-profit in the Metro Atlanta area that teaches leadership and life skills to African American (AA) teen girls. Verbal consent was initially sought from the parents in order to allow the girls to participate in the study. Additionally, verbal assent was gathered from the girls. A time and place to conduct the study was established (typically the participant’s home), and signed informed consent and assent forms were required before initiation. All participants were given a $5 cash incentive for participation in the study. The chain sampling method was used to identify other AA teenagers who might be interested in participating; participants and their parents offered names and contact information to reach other AA teenagers. Girls were permitted to participate in the study based on their willingness, age (13-18 years), and self-identification as both “African American” and “female”. Chain sampling was continued until the study was able to sufficiently reach saturation. Saturation was reached after recruiting and interviewing 24 participants from January to March 2019. Each interview lasted approximately 44 minutes. Consent Informed consent forms were provided to participants and their parents. Assent forms were given to teenagers from 13-17 years of age. The forms contained an overview of the study, procedures, risks, benefits, confidentiality, and the researcher’s contact information. Consent was obtained directly from teenagers who were 18-years-old. Parents consented for their daughters who were under age 18. Before the study began, participants and parents were allowed to ask clarifying questions. The researcher also reiterated that participants were free to withdraw from the study or refuse any procedures without fear of penalty, including that they would not forfeit their $5 cash incentive for ending the study early.
