On the Concept of Snowball Sampling

Abstract

A phenomenon in the sociology of science is that multidisciplinary fields tend to produce a plethora of inconsistent terminology. Often the meaning of a term evolves over time, or different terms are used for the same concept. More confusing is the use of the same term for different concepts. The term ‘snowball sampling’ suffers from this treatment. It has likely been in informal use for a long time, but it certainly predates Coleman (1958) and Trow (1957). The earliest systematic work dates to the 1940s from the Columbia Bureau of Applied Social Research, led by Paul Lazarsfeld. In this note we review the history of the term ‘snowball sampling’.