Volunteer Bias

Volunteer bias is an "accepted source of error" that can be found in research. For instance, a researcher is conducting research on community attitudes towards some issue. They are accepting volunteers into the sample group through which the attitudes are being obtained. This method can perhaps obtain valid data but there is also grounds for suspicion of the accuracy of the data due to the fact that the group members were volunteers, rather than a truly random sample of the community. Perhaps these attitudes are influenced by the same qualities that make a person volunteer to do research. Maybe there are qualities in volunteers in general. This situation may create a biased sample that is not truly representative of the population