what are the downsides of representative sampling 
like other statistical tools representative sampling can sometimes produce biased or inaccurate results moreover the time and cost of creating a representative sample may be prohibitive especially if the population is spread out over a wide geographical area there may also be self selection bias if some members of the sample fail to respond to the researchers attempts to make contact the bottom linea representative sample is a statistical snapshot that is used to make inferences about a wider population while it is possible to get accurate results from a simple random sample a representative sample is one that shares the same demographic characteristic of the larger population these samples are more difficult to create but can lead to more accurate analysis especially for a large study 