Biased sampling in dissertation

Hi all

My friend is currently working on her MBA dissertation. Her sampling method is flawed and produced some very biased result. (Using roughly less than 20% of the population to represent the whole, basically choosing only the elite and use their opinion to represent the whole population.) The deadline is coming in and she probably doesn't have enough time to make all the changes to fix this problem.

How likely is it that the marker will notice? ( I am not a MBA student, but I took notice right away. But her proofreader did not.) Would she fail if this error is spotted ? Does it depend on university to university ? Will the covid-19 situation work in her favour ?

Many Thanks

Hi all

My friend is currently working on her MBA dissertation. Her sampling method is flawed and produced some very biased result. (Using roughly less than 20% of the population to represent the whole, basically choosing only the elite and use their opinion to represent the whole population.) The deadline is coming in and she probably doesn't have enough time to make all the changes to fix this problem.

How likely is it that the marker will notice? ( I am not a MBA student, but I took notice right away. But her proofreader did not.) Would she fail if this error is spotted ? Does it depend on university to university ? Will the covid-19 situation work in her favour ?

Many Thanks

Its really hard to say how noticeable it is or how big an issue it is without reading the report.

I would at least prepare a defence for this at the viva.

I doubt she would fail it, it might impact the marks. (If the whole methodology is flawed it could have a larger impact), if its just the results then perhaps less so.

Of course the mark scheme and examiner will have an impact.

I would say that it's important that she writes in her discussion about any flaws to her method, why they are flaws, and what she would do differently next time. Obvious flaws that are not addressed will mean that the marker can't give marks there. At this stage, she would not be expected to redo anything, but she needs to ensure that the marker knows what she knows about her research.

Due to the covid situation, there will not be a viva. I believe the methodology certainly flawed, as her finding completely excluded any non-tertiary educated participants. The topic is a study of the whole population.

What I mean was,
If the methodology principle is sound and its a case of poor data collection or if the whole design of the project was fundamentally flawed.

Regardless she is where she is.

I would take PhoenixFortunes advice and bring it up in the discussion and how it could be mitigated and changes you would make if you repeated the project.
Doing so would show critical thought and then you can re-bring this up in the future work section after the conclusions.

She does not intend to change her discussion, but only mention that she took notice of this in her limitation session.

She will probably not gain as many marks if she doesn't fully elaborate on her project's limitations, but I guess it's up to her. Why do you think she is reticent to make changes?

Thank you very much, I am also wondering if the data collected is biased, so will the findings and discussion. Will each session be graded independently ? Or will they consider errors that carried forward ?