2nd Assignment

Survey Instruments and Field Procedures and its implication in Business Research

ALLAMA IQBAL OPEN UNIVERSITY

(Department of Business Administration)
Assignment # 2
Human Resource Management (5532)

TOPIC: TRAINING NEEDS ANALYSIS

Submitted to: Sir M. Ammir Razaq

Submitted by: Sadaf Javed
Roll No. AH-522546

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Survey Instruments and Field Procedures and its implication in Business Research

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

All praises to Almighty Allah, the most Gracious, the most Beneficent and the most
Merciful, who enabled me to complete this assignment.
I feel great pleasure in expressing my since gratitude to my teacher, for his guidance
and support for providing me an opportunity to complete my Project.
My special thanks and acknowledgments to Mr. Ammir Razaq for providing me all
relative information, guidance and support to compile the practical study at Telenor.
I will keep my hopes alive for the success of given task to submit this report to my
honorable teacher Mr. Ammir Razaq , whose guidance; support and encouragement
enable me to complete this assignment.

Executive Summary

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Survey Instruments and Field Procedures and its implication in Business Research

Surveyors as professionals must fulfil certain legal, regulatory and/or accuracy requirements for
their clients. Typically they will strive to do this in an optimal cost effective way and with the most
appropriate equipment for the job at hand. Naturally it requires a good understanding and assurance
in the instrumentation employed. Clients want the most from what they pay for. Legislative
authorities as well as private and public companies require confidence that the services rendered are
in conformity with globally accepted best practice rules. Generally this involves the application of
internationally recognized standards.

Considerable efforts have been made concerning testing in the field of surveying. In particular the
ISO standard 17123 parts 1 through 8 concerning levels, theodolites, EDM’s, total stations and most
recently GNSS field measurement systems in real time kinematic (RTK); have been published.
Instrument manufacturers often quote these standards when making reference to their instruments
precision. Each of the ISO 17123 standards prescribes test procedures aimed at determining if the
instrument is functioning correctly and qualifying its precision and performance.

Contents

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Survey Instruments and Field Procedures and its implication in Business Research

1. Survey Research.................................................................................5

2. Types of research............................... ....................................................6

3. Questionnaires .................................................... .................................................6

4. Interviews .............................................. ........................................ 8

5. Scaling .............................................................. ......................................8

6. Field procedyres ........................................ ......... ................... 9

7. Primary data . . .. .............................................................. ...................11

8. Secondary data. . . ............................................................................. ......... 11

9. Tips for successful field research . . . . . . ............................ ........... .......... 11

10. Appendix.................................................................................... .......................13

11. References.................................................................................... ............16

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Survey Research:
Survey research is one of the most important areas of measurement in applied social research. The
broad area of survey research encompasses any measurement procedures that involve asking
questions of respondents. A "survey" can be anything forms a short paper-and-pencil feedback form
to an intensive one-on-one in-depth interview.

We'll begin by looking at the different types of surveys that are possible. These are roughly divided
into two broad areas: Questionnaires and Interviews. Next, we'll look at how you select the survey
method that is best for your situation. Once you've selected the survey method, you have to construct
the survey itself. Here, we will be address a number of issues including: the different types of
questions; content; decisions; decisions about response format; and, sequence in your instrument.
We turn next to some of the special issues involved in administering a personal interview. Finally,
we'll consider some of the advantages and disadvantages of survey methods

Research instruments serve as measurement tools and are an integral component of any nursing
research study. Research instruments may include physiologic or biologic measurements; self-report
instruments, scales, or questionnaires; interviews; diaries; structured or unstructured observations; Q
methodologies; psychologic measurements; or other specialized measures.

If a particular concept has been studied, research instruments to measure that concept can be
identified and selected from clinical practice or from a literature review. When a concept has not
been examined, part of the research process may include developing and testing new measurement
instruments. A research instrument must be reliable (ie, consistent) and valid (ie, measure what it
intends to measure) and contribute to the scientific integrity of a research project.

Decisions about research measures are made by the researcher and are based on the research
question and the design of the study. The research instruments for an investigation need to
accurately measure the phenomena under study. Identifying the right research instruments is critical
to the validity of the design and the results. The researcher also must examine die fit of the research
instruments to die methods. For example, interviews often are employed in qualitative

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Types of Surveys:

Surveys can be divided into two broad categories: the questionnaire and the interview.
Questionnaires are usually paper-and-pencil instruments that the respondent completes.
Interviews are completed by the interviewer based on the respondent says. Sometimes, it's hard to
tell the difference between a questionnaire and an interview. For instance, some people think that
questionnaires always ask short closed-ended questions while interviews always ask broad open-
ended ones. But you will see questionnaires with open-ended questions (although they do tend to be
shorter than in interviews) and there will often be a series of closed-ended questions asked in an
interview.

Survey research has changed dramatically in the last ten years. We have automated telephone
surveys that use random dialing methods. There are computerized kiosks in public places that allows
people to ask for input. A whole new variation of group interview has evolved as focus group
methodology. Increasingly, survey research is tightly integrated with the delivery of service. Your
hotel room has a survey on the desk. Your waiter presents a short customer satisfaction survey with
your check. You get a call for an interview several days after your last call to a computer company
for technical assistance. You're asked to complete a short survey when you visit a web site. Here, I'll
describe the major types of questionnaires and interviews’, keeping in mind that technology is
leading to rapid evolution of methods. We'll discuss the relative advantages and disadvantages of
these different survey types in Advantages and Disadvantages of Survey Methods.

Questionnaires:

When most people think of questionnaires, they think of the mail survey. All of us have, at one time
or another received a questionnaire in the mail. There are many advantages
to mail surveys. They are relatively inexpensive to administer. You can
send the exact same instrument to a wide number of people. They allow the
respondent to fill it out at their own convenience. But there are some disadvantages as well.
Response rates from mail surveys are often very low. And, mail questionnaires are not the best
vehicles for asking for detailed written responses.

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A second type is the group administered questionnaire. A sample of

respondents is brought together and asked to respond to a structured
sequence of questions. Traditionally, questionnaires were administered in
group settings for convenience. The researcher could give the
questionnaire to those who were present and be fairly sure that there would
be a high response rate. If the respondents were unclear about the meaning of a question they could
ask for clarification. And, there were often organizational settings where it was relatively easy to
assemble the group (in a company or business, for instance).

What's the difference between a groups administered questionnaire and a group interview or focus
group? In the group administered questionnaire, each respondent is handed an instrument and
asked to complete it while in the room. Each respondent completes an instrument. In the group
interview or focus group, the interviewer facilitates the session. People work as a group, listening to
each other's comments and answering the questions. Someone takes notes for the entire group --
people don't complete an interview individually.

A less familiar type of questionnaire is the household drop-off survey. In

this approach, a researcher goes to the respondent's home or business and
hands the respondent the instrument. In some cases, the respondent is asked
to mail it back or the interview returns to pick it up. This approach attempts
to blend the advantages of the mail survey and the group administered questionnaire. Like the mail
survey, the respondent can work on the instrument in private, when it's convenient. Like the group
administered questionnaire, the interviewer makes personal contact with the respondent -- they don't
just send an impersonal survey instrument. And, the respondent can ask questions about the study
and get clarification on what is to be done. Generally, this would be expected to increase the percent
of people who are willing to respond.

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Interviews

Interviews are a far more personal form of research than questionnaires. In the
personal interview, the interviewer works directly with the respondent.
Unlike with mail surveys, the interviewer has the opportunity to probe or
ask follow-up questions. And, interviews are generally easier for the
respondent, especially if what is sought is opinions or impressions.
Interviews can be very time consuming and they are resource intensive.
The interviewer is considered a part of the measurement instrument and interviewers have to
be well trained in how to respond to any contingency.

Almost everyone is familiar with the telephone interview. Telephone

interviews enable a researcher to gather information rapidly. Most of the
major public opinion polls that are reported were based on telephone
interviews. Like personal interviews, they allow for some personal contact
between the interviewer and the respondent. And, they allow the
interviewer to ask follow-up questions. But they also have some major disadvantages. Many people
don't have publicly-listed telephone numbers. Some don't have telephones. People often don't like
the intrusion of a call to their homes. And, telephone interviews have to be relatively short or people
will feel imposed upon.

Scaling:
Scaling is the branch of measurement that involves the construction of an instrument that associates
qualitative constructs with quantitative metric units. Scaling evolved out of efforts in psychology
and education to measure "un measurable" constructs like authoritarianism and self esteem. In many
ways, scaling remains one of the most arcane and misunderstood aspects of social research
measurement. And, it attempts to do one of the most difficult of research tasks -- measure abstract
concepts.

Most people don't even understand what scaling is. The basic idea of scaling is described in General
Issues in Scaling, including the important distinction between a scale and a response format. Scales

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are generally divided into two broad categories: uni dimensional and multidimensional. The uni
dimensional scaling methods were developed in the first half of the twentieth century and are
generally named after their inventor. We'll look at three types of uni dimensional scaling methods
here:

• Thurstone or Equal-Appearing Interval Scaling

• Likert or "Summative" Scaling
• Guttman or "Cumulative" Scaling

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, measurement theorists developed more advanced techniques for
creating multidimensional scales. Although these techniques are not considered here, you may want
to look at the method of concept mapping that relies on that approach to see the power of these
multivariate methods.

Field procedures of data collection in research

Proceeding from general to specific research questions, makes the research activities in any project
more focused - in terms of data needed to answer the research questions. Hence questions associated
with data collection are some of the most important in any research enquiry.
It is fairly common for a Research Plan to be divided into two stages: Pre-empirical and empirical
stages. The first stage is where you start with the research question, go through what others have
done, modify your own research question(s) and set some kind of hypothesis or theory. The second
stage is that part of your research where you decide on your research design i.e. qualitative or
quantitative or a combination of both and assemble your conceptual framework. These stages will be
informed by such decisions like:
• What kind of data is required to test the hypothesis/theory?
• From whom to collect the data? and
• What procedures need to be followed to collect that data?
All these decisions are related to the planning of the data collection before it is actually collected. In
this regard, you need to answer some questions as you devise your data collection procedures:
1) How is the data collected?
This can take place at two stages - as part of planning and during project development
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a. if the data is collected as part of a planning activity, or introduced in a project

document, it is necessary to indicate the following:
o Where is the information documented?
o When the information is considered "final"?
b. if the data is collected during the course of project development you will need to
indicate the following:
o Who is responsible for providing the data?
o how to ensure that all relevant data has been collected
2. When is the data collected?
Make sure the procedures indicate at exactly what point each piece of data is to be collected.

3. Who is responsible for collecting and recording the data?

Describe who is responsible for collecting the data, who is responsible for entering it in the database,
and who is responsible for transforming the raw data into the form you will work on.

4. Where is the collected data stored?

Describe how the data will be stored - questionnaires, records of interviews, copies of official
documents, emails, as well as the name and location of these materials.

5. How do we ensure that the data is correct?

Describe any consistency checks that can be performed to verify that the data is reasonable
(reliable). You will also need to describe the procedure for dealing with suspect or blatantly
erroneous data.
There are different ways through which you can collect data depending, for example, upon whether
it is primary or secondary data or whether it is quantitative or qualitative data.
The most common procedures used for data collection are:
a) Primary Data Collection
i. Questionnaires
o Self administered questionnaire
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o Interview administered questionnaires

ii. Open ended interviews
iii. Focus Group Discussions
iv. Observations
b) Secondary Data Collection
Secondary data collection is basically collecting data from documents, records and reports of others.

It is also important to compare all these procedures, find out their comparative advantages and
disadvantages before you finally settle for a particular data collection procedure.
However whichever procedure you use, certain guidelines regarding ethics in data collection,
management of data collection and designing of data collection instruments will have to be kept in
mind.
Tips for successful field research:

The way that you conduct your field research will have a significant impact on the quality of the
results. Below are the key points to remember when conducting your research and interpreting your
results.

Ask the right questions

If your questions are badly phrased then they may produce misleading results. Avoid closed
questions which encourage the answer "yes" or "no". A stationery shop that asks customers if they
intend to buy pens in the next year will find out just that - but they won't discover what type of pens,
eg specially engraved pens or cheap biros.

Talk to the right people

A survey at a railway station, for example, will get answers from commuters, but if you're targeting
people who stay at home with young children, this won't be representative of your market.

Talk to enough people

A survey, for example, of two people won't get you enough information. Some market research
professionals suggest asking at least 150 people in order to get a complete picture.

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Keep research impartial

It's easy to encourage people to give the answer you want. For example, by asking leading questions
or smiling at the 'right' answer. Discussions, where you're not working from a list of set questions,
are particularly easy to distort. And in a focus group, individuals with strong opinions may influence
the views of others.

Interpret results with care

You need to make sure you draw the right conclusions from your research. Bear in mind that people
may distort answers in the hope of affecting what you do. For example, they might say they would
be interested in a product "if the price was lower". Qualitative research - where you're investigating
feelings and attitudes - can be particularly difficult to interpret.

Be realistic
It can be tempting to pick out results that confirm what you want to hear, and ignore the rest. But
ignoring negative results could damage your business. Be prepared to modify your plans if
necessary.

Data collection procedures

Due to the fact that the data I collected was large in scope because it included standardized test
results, survey results, portfolios and field notes, I decided to sift through every piece of information
that I had and put it into categories that then became groups (Burns, 1999). One group was related to
the tests I applied; another group contained the survey results; another contained the field notes; and
the last one contained the student portfolios which had the students’ work and results in the different
inquiry-based tasks. After painstaking sifting, sorting and grouping, some of my research findings
began to surface.

Since sorting into categories is one of the most important steps in the data analysis process and I had
already grouped the events that took place during the implementation of the inquiry-based learning
unit, I followed the steps described below in order to make sense of the data I collected. The main
purpose was to start drawing out some theories and explanations in order to interpret the meaning of
those trends, characteristics or features that became apparent (Burns, 1999).

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Bearing in mind that this was an action research project, I knew I had to analyze the data, interpret it
and develop a theory about what the data meant in order to improve my teaching practice in science
classes while increasing the students’ autonomy awareness.

To shape the overall process of data analysis, I used the framework adapted from McKernan (1996).
I started by assembling the data that I had collected over the period of my research: pre-test, pre-
survey, students’ portfolios, field notes, post-test and post-survey. The initial questions that began
my research project provided me a starting point for rereading the data which I scanned first of all in
a general way.

I noted down thoughts, ideas and impressions that occurred to me during this initial examination of
the information that I gathered especially from the field notes that I took throughout the intervention.
At this stage, broad patterns began to show up which I thought could be compared and contrasted
later on to analyze what fit together (Burns, 1999). Once I gathered all the data that I had collected
through the data collection instruments I used I found that students:

• were more willing to start the class.

• enjoyed doing the experiments and watching the videos I played them.
• were attentive to the teacher instructions and read the instructions to perform some tasks.
• wanted to show the teacher their portfolios and their findings at home.
searched for information on their own about the topics.
• included in their portfolios a good number of different items related to the systems of the human
body.
• started asking more questions than they used to at the beginning of the unit.
• tried to find the answers to the questions on their own using their textbooks and materials from
their portfolios.
• enjoyed working with their classmates in pairs and groups.
• participated actively in experiments and hands-on activities.
• were able to draw conclusions after inquiry activities.
• showed in their pre-test results that they didn’t know much about the systems of the human body
even though they had studied this topic in previous years.
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• showed in their post-test results improvement in their knowledge about the systems of the human
body.
• showed in the pre-survey results that most of them preferred student-centered classes.
• showed in the pre-survey results that they did not feel very autonomous.
• showed in the pre-survey results that they were hesitant about their preferred learning styles.
• showed in the post-survey results that they felt more autonomous.
• showed in the post-survey results that they identified their preferred learning styles better.

Once there had been some overall examination of the data that I thought illuminated the question I
was researching, I created categories related to inquiry-based learning and its effect on the students’
autonomy awareness and jotted a name for each one of them until I completed a list of categories
(Burns, 1999). The objective was to reduce the amount of data that I had collected to more
manageable categories of concepts, themes or types. The following are the categories for my data:

Category 1: Student-centered methodology vs. teacher-centered methodology

Category 2: Encouraging students to inquire
Category 3: Learning styles
Category 4: Learning autonomy

In order to move beyond describing, categorizing, coding and comparing to make sense of the data I
had collected, I got to a point in the data analysis process that demanded a certain amount of creative
thinking since it was time to articulate underlying concepts and developing theories about why
particular patterns of behaviors, interactions or attitudes had emerged.

I came back to the data I had collected several times and I posed questions about it, rethought the
connections among the data and developed explanations of the bigger picture underpinning my
action research project (Burns, 1999). Then I discussed the data patterns and themes with some of
the school’s science teachers trying to find new discoveries or interpretations.

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Reference
 Survey Research Methods, by Earl R. Babbie
 http://www.socialresearchmethods.net
 http://www.fig.net/pub/monthly_articles/september_2008/septembe
 Johnson, Anthony, Solving Stonehenge: The New Key to an Ancient Enigma.
 Hong-Sen Yan & Marco Ceccarelli (2009), International Symposium on History of Machines
and Mechanisms: Proceedings of HMM 2008,
 Donald Routledge Hill (1996), "Engineering", pp. 766-9, in Rashed, Roshdi; Morelon, Régis
(1996), Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science, Routledge
 National Cooperative Highway Research Program: Collecting, Processing and
IntegratingPublished by Transportation Research Board,

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 Toni Schenk1, Suyoung Seo, Beata Csatho: Accuracy Study of Airborne Laser Scanning Data
with Photogrammer
 http://www.fig.net/pub/athens/papers/ts12/TS12_4_Kibblewhite_Wilkinson.pdf
 http://hp1.gcal.ac.uk/pls
 http://www.prospects.ac.uk/cms
 http://www.surveyorsinfrance.com

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