Questionnaire Design The Researcher example essay topic

CHAPTER 3 Reward systems RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3.1. INTRODUCTION The aim of this chapter is to explain, justify and account for the research methodology that has been selected in this study. In conducting the investigation, the researcher intends to proceed from a quantitative-descriptive design. A number of issues related to the research methodology will be extensively discussed below. 3.2.

METHODICAL ACCOUNT (RESEARCH: QUANTITATIVE-DESCRIPTIVE) Ther as cited by De Vos and Fouch'e (1998: 77), defines a research design as a "blueprint or detailed plan for how a research study is to be conducted - ope rationalizing variables so they can be measured, selecting a sample of interest to study; collecting data to be used as a basis for testing hypotheses, and analyzing the results". Hussey and Hussey (1997: 54), also point out that research methodology refers to the overall approach evident in the research process from the theoretical foundation to the strategies that are used in the collection and analysis of the data. So research methodology can be said to indicate the answers to questions as to how research should be designed, structured, approached and executed. In this study, the researcher has opted to conduct his investigation through the quantitative-descriptive paradigm. A randomized cross-sectional survey design will be used to investigate attitudes of employees with regard to reward systems. According to De Vos and Fouch'e (1998: 127), the randomized cross-sectional design is written as follows: R O 1 Where, R = randomized selected subjects O 1 = administration of the questionnaire It is through the relevant and appropriate quantitative research paradigm that the researcher hopes to conduct a controlled, purposive, accurate, systematic, and scientific research on the impact of reward systems on employee attitudes.

The researcher also hopes that the quantitative research approach would enable him to arrive at findings that would have greater validity and less artificiality as a process of measuring the impact of rewards on employee attitudes. 3.3. RESEARCH METHOD The term "method" is derived from the Greek word "meta" plus "tho dos" which literally refer to "the path along which, or the road by which a set destination is pursued". In other words, it means the way by which researchers carry out the investigation and eventually discover the truth, which truth they use to establish science (Du Plooy, Griesel and Oberholzer, 1993: 211). On the other hand, Mancosa (2003: 15) maintains that methods refer to the specific means by which data is collected and analysed. In this context, the method identified herein after below will be used throughout the investigation. 3.4. RANDOMIZED CROSS-SECTIONAL SURVEY Sasko Bakery has 14 branches in the Limpopo Province with a provincial head office situated in Polokwane.

It is assumed that one type of reward system is employed among all the branches of Sasko Bakery. As the branches are scattered all over the province, the researcher has decided to select only four branches for the study. The branches selected lie at a proximity of about 100 km from the headquarters in Polokwane. Twenty respondents will be randomly selected from each branch, to arrive at a sample of 80. To avoid selection of employees from a particular level, the researcher will employ stratified sampling. The researcher will also use an interview method as a way of collecting data.

This will be regarded as a secondary data collection method, in order to supplement the use of the questionnaire. 3.5. THE CONCEPTS OF RESEARCH INSTRUMENT AND TECHNIQUES The term technique is derived from the Greek word "tech ne" and it refers to proficiency or skill in the practical or formal aspects of something, e.g. painting, music, etc; and the term is also defined as mechanical or practical skill or method, or a way of achieving a purpose skillfully (Cullen and Chambers, 2000: 809). In this study a questionnaire will be used for gathering data. The process of administering the questionnaire will be outlined below. The researcher is of the opinion that with a well structured questionnaire enough data for analysis and interpretation could be collected. 3.6. DATA COLLECTING TECHNIQUE In this study, the researcher will purposefully make use of a questionnaire instrument in data collection, and supplement it with an interview instrument.

The instruments will enable the researcher to pose questions to subjects in his search for their attitudes with regard to reward systems in their company. 3.6. 1. THE QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN The researcher will design the research questionnaire. Questions asked will be related to how employees feel about reward systems of the company.

The researcher will try to ask the right questions. As the old saying goes: garbage in, garbage out. We quote Greengard (2004: 77) who says 'If the questions aren't framed properly, if they are too vague or too specific, it's impossible to amass any meaningful data. ' The researcher will try to design highly targeted questions. Questions will reflect the objective to be measured. Confusing and ambiguous, as well as unnecessary, terminology will be avoided in the question statements.

Closed-ended questions will be posed, and the respondent will be asked to select an answer from among a list provided by the researcher. Closed-ended questions, according to Babbie (1998: 148), are very popular because they provide a greater uniformity of responses and are more easily processed. Closed-ended responses, on the other hand, can often be transferred directly into a computer format. The answer categories will be mutually exclusive.

The participant will not feel compelled to select more than one answer. In designing the questionnaire, the researcher has taken cognizance of the following main aspects. 3.6. 1.2. SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHIC ITEMS Demographic questions will be included in the questionnaire. According to Copeland (2005: 5), these questions serve two purposes: 1. To see how closely the sample replicates the known population.

The more closely the demographic distribution of survey respondents matches the population, the more confidence you can have in the data. 2. To allow analysis of sub-groups of those responding to the survey. Below is a list of the types of demographic questions the researcher will consider including in the employee attitudes questionnaire. o Age, o Sex, o Marital status, o Number of children present in the household, o Length of time employed by the firm, o Level of employment (Senior manager, middle manager, supervisor, etc. ), o Department (if the sample is very large), o Annual / monthly income (in broad ranges).

The key in selecting the items to include is determining, to the extent possible, the variable that the researcher believe will segment the population in a manner such that the different segments will have different needs and / or feelings about the organization. 3.6. 1.2. BEHAVIOURAL QUESTIONS The researcher in this context will ask questions that measure attitudes, motivation and feelings, recognition, retention, satisfaction, morale. The questionnaire will be comprised of twenty attitude survey questions. The researcher will ascertain that all items on the questionnaire are relevant, concise and precise. The participants responses to questions will try to give light on their attitude with regard to the following variables about reward systems: pay satisfaction, job satisfaction, retention, employee performance, recognition, motivation, communication, and equity. The length of answering the questionnaire is estimated for approximately half an hour. 3.6.

2. PILOT TESTING THE QUESTIONNAIRE Before administering the questionnaire to participants, the researcher will test it on a small group of people. This may be colleagues, employees from a similar company, or relatives. The analysis of the pilot survey will bring to light any existing flaws in questions and items.

Possible improvements suggested by the sample group will be taken into consideration. These suggestions will assist the researcher to make necessary amendments so as to maximize returns and minimize error rate on questions. Pilot testing will also assist in evaluating the adequacy of the data for the research questions 3.7. INTERVIEW INSTRUMENT 3.7.

1. THE UNSTRUCTURED INTERVIEW The research will also make use of an interview instrument in order to supplement information gathered through the use of the questionnaire. According to Schurink (in De Vos, 1998: 297), the technique office-to-face interviewing treats the interview as a pipeline for extracting and transmitting information from the interviewee to the interviewer. As there are a number of different types of interview methods, the researcher will use the unstructured interview. This unstructured interview will be conducted with the use of a research schedule.

The schedule is a guideline for the interviewer and contains questions and themes that are important to the research (Schurink in De Vos, 1998: 299). The interview instrument will be used because of the following reasons and advantages: o Interviews make greater use of open-ended question so Interviews make use of small, deliberately selected purpose samples. o Interviews give a large and potentially unlimited information yield. o Interviews are unique in that they involve the collection of data through direct verbal interaction so Interviews permit the researcher to follow up verbal leads and thus obtain more data and greater clarity. o Interview situations will permit much greater depth than other methods of collecting data. 3.7. 2. RECORDING THE INTERVIEW DATA The recording of the interview data will be done through notes-taking and the use of a tape recorder (with the interviewee's consent).

Babbie (1998: 293) says that the researcher's notes should include both his empirical observations and his interpretations of them. The researcher will try as much as possible to record important samples of observations and articulations. The recording device will enable the researcher to play the recoding even after and during the interview so that it could be ascertained on the actual responses of the interviewees. 3.8. SAMPLING METHOD sample is the element of the population considered for actual inclusive in the study, or a subset of measurements drawn from a population in which we are interested (Strydom and De Vos in De Vos, 1998: 191). The basic idea is that by selecting some of the elements in the population and focusing research attention on this finite group, the research will be dealing with manageable, controllable and sizeable group that will enable the researcher to generalize his findings of the study to the whole population of interest. Some employees of the company in question will be chosen as relevant components of the sample for this study.

The four branches of Sasko Bakery chosen for the study, has a combined population of about 800 employees. The researcher will randomly select 80 participants as part of the study. For the administration of the questionnaire, probability sampling will be considered. According to Strydom and De Vos (in De Vos, 1998: 195), a probability sample is one in which each person in the population has the same known probability of being selected.

To cover all levels of employment in the company, the researcher will make use of stratified random sampling. Stratified random sampling is suitable in this research as it allows inclusive of small subgroups percentage-wise. Stratification consists of the universe being divided into a number of strata which are mutually exclusive, and the members of which are homogeneous with regard to some characteristics, such as gender, home language, age, etc (Strydom and De Vos in De Vos, 1998: 197). Selection of participants in different strata (employment level) will be done randomly. 3.9. VALIDITY OF RESEARCH INSTRUMENT Validity refers to the extent to which an empirical measure adequately reflects the real meaning of the concept under consideration (Babbie, 1998: 133). The researcher will strive to make sure that the research instrument measures what it is supposed to measure by considering different types of validity.

Face validity will require the research instrument to be relevant to participants in the study. Face validity will be established by asking friends, colleagues and other individuals from the target population to comment on the relevance, balance and adequacy of the research instrument in relation to the research objectives. Content validity will be met by seeking the opinions of experts in the field on the adequacy of the research instrument. Criterion validity will refer to capacity of the respondents' ratings and responses to items on the instruments to predict behaviour outside the immediate frame-work of the research instrument. For example, can positive responses to questions on reward system survey predict the work ethos and capacity of the respondents? Concurrent validity will indicate whether the level of responses to items on the research instrument, are parallel to other facets of the respondents' overall behaviour.

For example, are low attitude responses concurrent with low levels of job satisfaction. 3.10. RELIABILITY OF RESEARCH INSTRUMENT. Reliability of a research instrument refers to the consistency or respectability of the measurement of some phenomena (Mancosa, 2002: 15).

In the case of Sasko Bakery, test-retest reliability will involve administering the same research instrument at two different points in time to the same research subjects and obtaining a correlation between the two sets of responses. 3.11. DATA ANALYSIS After data has been gathered it will be codified and analysed. The researcher will use The Statistical Package for Personal Computers in data analysis. The researcher will make use of descriptive statistics as, this is a method for presenting quantitative descriptions in a manageable form (Babbie, 1998: 406).

3.12. SUMMARY In this section, the researcher has discussed important issues relating to the research methodology that will be used in the study. He started by stating the research paradigm that will guide the entire research exercise. The researcher intends to proceed in his research from a quantitative-descriptive point of view.

A questionnaire will be designed and employed for data collection. The questionnaire will be supplemented by using an interviewing method. This will be done in order to cater for unforeseen circumstances and to try to be broader in data collection. The researcher has shown how the questionnaire will be designed.

In designing the questionnaire, he will take into consideration, issues such as, socio-demographic items, behaviour al questions, and examples of questions to be included in the instrument will also be stated. In his secondary method of data gathering, the researcher has indicated that he will use the unstructured type of interview, with the assistance of a guide consisting of questions to be posed to interviewees. The researcher has chosen stratified sampling as a sampling method to be used in the study. The researcher has also shown how validity and reliability of the research instrument will be attained.

Lastly, the researcher has chosen descriptive statistics as a data analysis method. 3.13.

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