Advances in Applied Sociology, 2022, 12, 729-746 https://www.scirp.org/journal/aasoci ISSN Online: 2165-4336 ISSN Print: 2165-4328 DOI: 10.4236/aasoci.2022.1211052 Nov. 29, 2022 729 Advances in Applied Sociology An Original Solution for Completing Research through Snowball Sampling—Handicapping Method Irina-Maria Dragan 1* , Alexandru Isaic-Maniu 2 1 Department of Statistics and Econometrics, The Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania 2 Centre of Industry and Services Economy, National Institute of Economic Research, The Romanian Academy, Bucharest, Romania Abstract Snowball sampling, as a network research, has a number of advantages in re- gistering “hidden populations”, such as: people with rare diseases and unre- cognized by the community, illegal immigrants, drug users, people with de- viant sexual behavior, undeclared workers, alcoholics, gambling or computer addicts, unemployed jobseekers, domestic and school violence, etc. The pro- cedure is well known and widely applied, as are its drawbacks, the most im- portant of which is the ambiguity regarding the size of the sample under in- vestigation, as the number of interviewees cannot be predetermined, but it is up to the researcher to stop the survey when he/she considers the accumula- tion of information to be satisfactory or when the imposed limit of the re- search budget has been reached. The major disadvantage of this method of survey is the absence of objective, quantitative, scientifically based criteria, on the decision to stop the survey and this is precisely the aspect proposed to be resolved in the present paper. Our proposal, the handicapping method, adapts and develops the Wald test of the likelihood ratio for the case of investigating populations in terms of binary characteristics, a typical situation for sociologi- cal research. The procedure complements the snowball method, providing a completion under the conditions of assumed statistical risks. The results ob- tained in this original material can make a major contribution to the im- provement of sociological research methods in a special field—sociological field survey/research in closed groups and non-visible populations. Keywords Snowball Sampling, Network Sampling, Sequential Survey, Handicapping Method, Decision Criteria, Statistical Risks and Errors How to cite this paper: Dragan, I.-M., & Isaic-Maniu, A. (2022). An Original Solution for Completing Research through Snowball Sampling—Handicapping Method. Advances in Applied Sociology, 12, 729-746. https://doi.org/10.4236/aasoci.2022.1211052 Received: August 30, 2022 Accepted: November 26, 2022 Published: November 29, 2022 Copyright © 2022 by author(s) and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Open Access