Online virtual sampling based on social networks to locating Teleworkers as participants in a study conducted in Victoria de Durango, Mexico

Abstract

As part of a research project that aims to study the sociodemographic characteristics of people who perform Teleworking in Victoria de Durango, it was essential to locate people who are currently working as Teleworkers, and who are also residents of the city before mentioned, which is the objective of this work. A first attempt to locate this type of workers were carried out with conventional methods, but the result was not satisfactory, so, from the literary review, it was possible to identify that, this group of people have hidden sample characteristics, and therefore the appropriate tool was the so-called on-line virtual sampling as a method of locating called participants. For this purpose the social network Facebook was used as a methodological tool called Virtual Snowball, applying some pilot tests and two open campaigns restricted just for the geographic location of the before mentioned city, resulting in a group of more than 13.000 people who answered and 23 localized teleworkers, with which it was possible to establish a numerical factor that helped to calculate an approximate universe of teleworkers in the City of Durango, this information being useful for the subsequent phases of the integral study.