Sampling

Besides the methodology selected and the tools employed, an important element that influences the success of research is the appropriateness of the sampling strategy adopted (Cohen et al., 2002). In this research, the basic factors that influenced our decisions regarding the design of the sampling strategy were; the purpose of our research, time limitations and the access to the sample.

More precisely, while drawing up the sampling strategy, we had in mind that we were about to investigate an educational approach, that would be evaluated based on six basic aspects of computational thinking. Moreover, trying to strengthen the validity of our results, we decided to employ the mixed methods research i.e., both the qualitative and the quantitative research methods. We also decided to interview all the students that would participate in the intervention and not to be selective and interview fewer. Therefore, we concluded that a sample of limited size would be appropriate. Otherwise, the amount of gathered data would be huge and difficult to be studied, due to significant time limitations, which occurred because the first author is a full-time teacher, and concurrently she was responsible for the implementation of the research and the study of the obtained data. Nevertheless, the fact that the first author was the informatics teacher of the school where the research was conducted facilitated the access to the sample.

While designing the sampling strategy we knew that the sample selected could not represent any group apart from itself and, thus, generalisations about the wider population would be out of the question. Nevertheless, this was not an issue, since we did not seek to make general statements. A small sized sample would be enough to examine the potential impact and the way the innovative educational technique we propose might be integrated into the classroom. If the results of this limited research were satisfactory, then a larger research could be conducted seeking for generalisation.